Maurice and Maurice: A novel and Movie

 

Maurice: Novel (1914) by E. M. Forster

I came to E. M. Forster’s Maurice via its movie adaptation similarly titled. Forster completed it in 1914 but was published a year after his death in 1970. As a gay themed novel, it would have been daring in 1914, just fifteen years after Oscar Wilde’s trial. Forster was a homosexual, a fact he did not hide from his friends but also did not acknowledge it publicly. By 1971, queer fiction as a genre was beginning to take-off with several published novels by acclaimed writers such as James Baldwin, Christopher Isherwood and Gore Vidal. Maurice got a somewhat tepid response from critics. In fact, it was seen as inferior to A Room with a View and Howards End. 

Maurice is a coming-of-age story and a love triangle—it tracks the sexual journey of our eponymous hero from adolescence to adulthood, from a confused awareness of same sex attraction to the first taste of gay love (albeit platonic), heartbreak, attempts at conversion therapy and finally self-acceptance and physical consummation with a male lover. Running parallel to Maurice's quest for sexual identity is his Cambridge fellow student and first love Clive Durham's ambiguous sexuality. A squire with a country estate and political ambitions, Clive rejects (perhaps represses) physical desire in masculine love. So much so that after a bout of pneumonia he declares himself cured of his love for Maurice, gets married and encourages Maurice to do the same. At this point, Clive insists he and Maurice continue as friends. There is a third person in this story- Alec Scudder, the gay groundskeeper in Clive's estate. On a visit to Clive's estate, Maurice meets Alec and they start an affair that is initially sexual but turns into love. To Clive's horror, Maurice leaves with Alec never to be seen again in London society. 

Maurice is not a particularly likeable character. He is an upper middle class privileged young man--has no money problems, works in his father's firm, treats his widowed mother and unmarried sisters poorly, and the winds of cataclysmic world war that is slowly blowing towards England hardly touches him. His one crisis in life is sexual and in that struggle for sexual identity, Maurice becomes heroic. He refuses to live half a life offered by Clive that would be safe and respectable but without passion. Instead, he gives up social standing and financial security, risks exposure and public disgrace to be in a relationship that makes him happy. 

Critics may not have liked Maurice when it first came out, but time has worked in its favor. It is now recognized as a classic and is part of gay fiction canon. The novel's strength comes from its quiet but passionate argument that physical desire in gay love is as natural as in heterosexual relationship. 

Maurice: Movie (1987)--A Merchant Ivory Production starring James Wilby, Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves  

I saw Maurice the first time a few years after it was released. It was my first gay movie. Not having read the book, I did not know what to expect and was blown away by both its theme of homosexual love and the sex scenes between male characters. One does not have to read the novel to appreciate the movie. It stands very well on its own. The only thing that stayed in my memory was the scene when the butler is walking up the stairs with the breakfast and Maurice and Alec are still in bed together. Next moment he walks in, starts cleaning up the room, spots the ladder by the window and casually points to a mud spot on the floor. I remember holding my breath waiting for other telltale signs that might betray Maurice and heaving a huge sigh of relief when the scene ended.

Viewing it the second time after reading the book, I was able to appreciate the changes made in the movie version while retaining the broad contours of the novel. The biggest change is the storyline involving Lord Risley. He is a minor but interesting character in the book as an openly gay fellow student of Maurice and Clive. In the movie, he gets arrested for sodomy, tried in public and sentenced to imprisonment. This incident is set up as the reason for Clive renouncing his homosexuality and settling into a heterosexual passionless marriage. In showing men kissing and in bed together, the movie is bold for its time. The appeal of the movie is of course the nostalgic period settings, attractive protagonists and excellent acting. But it does not sugarcoat the oppressive social and sexual mores of the era and the price that is extracted from those who choose to defy them. 

Almost forty years after it was released, the movie based on a story written hundred years ago still holds up. 

My recommendation? Read the book, watch the movie in any order. It will be worth your time.