Contents

2 Welcome from the Editors 3 Contents 6 Paradoxes in Graham Green Novels 12 Breaking the Routine 14 Candide 16 Songs based on Literature 20 Lockdown Recommended Reads 22 Educating Daughters 26 Is Happily Ever After Real?

Editors

Holly Lovett, Lily Harding, Grace Turner

Editorial Contributions Robin Aldridge, Amanda Lingen, Lily Harding, Holly Lovett, Grace Turner, Amy Watton, Willow Dowd, Libby Driscoll, Aaina Jassel, Joanna Jepson, Alex Hale

Editoral Design & Typeset

Tiff any Pardoe

Front Page Illustration from SHS Archives ‘A Windy Day’ by A.L. Purcell c.1941

Published by Scribble, Shrewsbury High School 32 Town Walls, Shrewsbury, SY1 1TN P4 Maurice

P10 Black Lives Matter

P18

Young Adult Books An Acceptable Addiction?

Maurice

Perhaps the one good thing lockdown has given us is the chance to pick up old hobbies we didn’t have time for in our average routines. Unfortunately, reading for my own enjoyment had been something really lacking in my daily life before lockdown (poor show for an English student, I know), but suddenly with a summer of overwhelmingly indoor activities sprawled out in front of me, reading became one of my favourite things to fi ll my time with again. I’ve managed to get a handful of books under my belt since the beginning of the holidays- ones I’ve always been meaning to read like ‘Wuthering Heights’ and Leigh Bardugo’s ‘Six of Crows’- but the one that topped any expectations I had of it was EM Forster’s ‘Maurice’. Looking at the novel from our modern experience of gay representation, it’s easy to miss just how extraordinary this little book is. Written in 1913, but not published until 1971, after Forster’s death, ‘Maurice’ is a surprisingly sharp story that concerns itself not only with creating an intimate portrait of the life and loves of our protagonist, Maurice Hall, but also with deconstructing the

E.M. Forster, in full Edward Morgan Forster, (born January 1, 1879, London, England—died June 7, 1970, Coventry, Warwickshire),

values and systems operating at the time the novel was written. Forster, through Maurice’s eyes, allows us to see the injustice of a society that forces people to repress themselves to the point where they no longer understand their own desires, as well as a class system that encourages a view of servants and workers as less than human. Maurice himself is also one of the most endearing protagonists I’ve come across in quite a long time; Forster is never charitable to him, creating the impression that even our omniscient narrator has no patience for his rudeness or ignorance. Recently I fi nd myself more and more exasperated with the practically fl awless main characters that seem to be taking up an increasing amount of space in the modern literature landscape; I’m sure we’re all familiar with a character whose only ‘personality fl aw’ is their dark backstory and penchant for sarcasm. Maurice is not one of these characters, he’s defi nitely not someone you’d traditionally label as “cool”, in fact his lack of witty rapport and general lack of critical thinking skills altogether are frequently remarked upon. He comes from a privileged upper-class background and often has trouble forming his own opinions independent of the status quo. Maurice would have blended seamlessly into the high society that produced him if it weren’t for one key aspect: his sexual orientation. It is this element that propels his maturation forwards, and the experiences he has as a result of it that serve to broaden his horizons, and make him grow into an empathetic person with an awareness of his strengths as well as his shortcomings.

Perhaps the most aff ecting parts of the narrative to me, though, are the two romances Maurice experiences over the duration of the story. I’ve mentioned how easy it would be to dismiss ‘Maurice’ on the basis of the fact that nowadays, gay representation in media is far more commonplace. In the last decade or so, corporations have realised that the LGBTQ+ community are in fact also capable of giving them money, and so we have gained an infl ux of queer characters making their appearances in TV, fi lm and literature. For many, this is a victory; a tangible sign of progress; but to me these stories can more often than not feel hollow. The prime example of this hollowness comes in the form of 2018’s

‘Love, Simon’, a studio produced, gay romantic comedy that is so dead set on convincing its audience that it’s just like any other teen romcom that it completely passes up any chances for originality. It is this corporatized version of gay romance that I’ve become used to seeing in the mainstream. So, when reading ‘Maurice’ I was pleasantly shocked to fi nd such a sincere, considered and passionate story about two men in love. Plenty of gay love stories in the 21st century concern themselves with appearing ‘normal’, with appearing to be identical to the average heterosexual love story, all for the sake of being assimilated into heterocentric society; but none of them manage to pull it off whilst retaining any heart. ‘Maurice’, in the simple act of being a plain love story unbothered with doctoring any details for studio or publisher approval, achieves it. And it’s really, really wonderful.

After reading and enjoying the book as much as I did, I decided to seek out the 1987 fi lm adaptation. I’d already seen it and appreciated it on its own merits as a fi lm, but wanted to compare it to the novel and see how it held up. What I found was even more interesting.

The fi rst thing to know about the fi lm ‘Maurice’ is it is almost a carbon copy of the book it was based off of; the majority of the dialogue is taken directly off the page. As an experienced hater of book to fi lm adaptations, this is something that almost never happens and is a godsend for book fans when it does- you get to see the story you love translated as honestly as possible between mediums. However, there is one crucial change the fi lm makes that serves to ripple through the rest of the plot and warp it into something I believe delivers a totally opposite experience to that of the novel.

The fi rst man Maurice falls in love with, Clive Durham, is a fellow student studying at Cambridge. He has a very similar background to Maurice; inherited wealth, fi rmly part of the English upper class. Whilst Maurice’s love for him is based on genuine aff ection and admiration, Clive’s love for Maurice is fi ltered through his own elitist goal of living through the Platonic ideal of love. For Clive this takes form in a refusal to be intimate with Maurice, and on a deeper level a refusal to recognise his lover as an equal. It is when Clive realises that Maurice cannot help him reach this narcissistic, and frankly hypocritical, ideal of ‘Classical purity’, that he puts an end to their relationship. In the novel, this section contributes to the class commentary, implying that those at the top of society believe themselves capable of living in a state of complete perfection, defi ned by strict rules and boundaries in an attempt to replicate some false image of the past. This is directly contrasted with the love shared between Maurice and Alec Scudder, a groundskeeper far below Maurice’s station that demands equality in their relationship as a fi rst priority.

In the fi lm, this is changed quite drastically. Obviously, part of the nuance is lost along with the lack of ability to see parts of the story from Clive’s point of view; there is much less emphasis on Clive’s classical studies and how they aff ect his perspective. What really alters the fi lms version of Clive’s narrative are the only original scenes added by the screenwriters that were not present in the book. Risley, another one of Maurice and Clive’s Cambridge classmates, is tricked into revealing his homosexuality and is sent to prison in a trial scene reminiscent of Oscar Wilde’s infamous incarceration. Clive is shown looking in horror at the newspaper that reports Risley’s imprisonment, and later appearing at the aforementioned trial, hiding his face, mortifi ed, as if he’s only just coming to terms with how dangerous being gay in Edwardian England is. It’s implied that this new fear is the thing that causes him to end things with Maurice. This, understandably, makes the audience far more sympathetic towards Clive than they would have been had the narrative remained untouched, but unfortunately takes a lot of the bite out of Forster’s original message. The fi lm becomes not a story of Maurice’s triumph in fi nding love that is founded on mutual respect, but of Clive’s tragedy, that he had to let Maurice go because of the societal circumstances.

I spent a good deal of time after my second viewing of the fi lm wondering why these changes were made- why blunt such a sharp commentary like this?

I’ve come to the conclusion that the fault lies with England’s beloved, Hugh Grant. For context- Hugh Grant actually plays Clive, I’m not just randomly picking on everyone’s favourite heartthrob. The casting of Hugh Grant as Clive in the midst of his dashing, English gentleman, heartthrob days was always going to result in him being more likable than the character is on paper. When Clive’s elitism is dressed up in Grant’s awkward charm, suddenly it’s no longer a problem.

Despite this, I don’t think Grant is entirely to blame. The fi lm is a period drama, and usually period drama audiences come for the escapism, the fantasy and the glamour of the past- which necessitates glossing over a lot of the ugliness that could be found within these time periods. Personally, I think Clive’s makeover, so to speak, was a result of the writer’s desire to deliver a new tragic romantic lead to rival the likes of Darcy and Rochester, men who were themselves of a high social standing.

This is not to devalue the fi lm altogether, it is a beautifully made, beautifully scored piece of work and in all other places the world and characters that Forster constructs for us are vibrantly brought to life. Only on the level of its moral does it fail its original version.

Ultimately, I would recommend both the book and the fi lm because of their diff erences. It’s been interesting for me to try and fi gure out which I like best and why, and what values both of them try and put forward. I hope anyone who reads this and decides to give either a read or a watch has as rewarding an experience as I did!