Reply to comment

Recently, I've been wondering more and more why we are reading books such as Howard's End and On Beauty. Though Forster touched on the evolution of his characters, I find it hard to believe that we are reading these novels so that it can be proved to us that there is both biological evolution and cultural (or personal) evolution. That thought is way beyond exhausted at this point, and I feel like the beginning of the semester set us up for way more than what I'm extracting from these stories. It's as if I've adapted to making sense of the abstract and am now being asked to make obvious observations:

"Here is a picture of a circle, what do you see?"

"A circle."

"Why?"

"Because Forster said: I am going to write a story about shapes. There is a circle in my story."

This is not to say that I am enjoying this half of the semester any less than the first, though I continue to wait for something relevant to our "there is no truth" theory in the novels. Was that just a side-dish anecdote to carry with us in the future? Because if so, i've been going about this class all wrong. That theory changed how I look at everything because I thought we were supposed to ignore the "forest from the trees" and instead say "there is no forest, cool huh?"

Additionally, I keep wondering why this class does not incorporate books like Ishmael which so obviously takes Literature and the Topic of Evolution and mixes it into a wonderful delight of goodness. It is a perfect read for this class! A novel...about trying to identify "What Evolution Is..." why things are the way they are, why we place meaning on the meaningless, the origin of morality, culture...basically THIS CLASS in novel form...which evolves just as much as Howard's End. Especially if you read it's prequal and then Ishamael. Perhaps it offers answers to questions you (the professors) want us to come across ourselves. Either way, it's a steller book, and I highly recommend that you consider it in the future.

Will On Beauty fullfill my desire to continue making sense of the abstract? Let's hope.