Finished: The Longest Journey (Forster) I went on a mini Forster kick (two books) and though this one wasn't as good as A Room With A View, it was still very well written and deep in content....almost too deep for me. :-) In any event, I did enjoy it. It's one of those books that is just making me sit here in a contemplative mood. The book is about a young man named Rickie, who we first meet at Cambridge with all his friends, his best friend being Ansell. They are discussing Philosophy, which is Ansell's major and life passion. Rickie, who is of average intelligence, doesn't always follow the conversation, but he and Ansell are the best of friends. Rickie's parents both died when he was young, leaving him to be raised by relatives. His Cambridge buddies are now more of a family than he's really ever had before. Rickie can remember his mother, who he idolized. She raised him on her own once his father left them. Rickie is not terribly attractive, and is lame in one foot, which causes him to limp. He doesn't really have the confidence to think much of himself, but wants desperately to just be a writer...writing about nature and how deeply humans and nature interact. Rickie and Ansell grow apart as a girl enters Rickie's life. Agnes, an old family friend, loses her beloved, the man she's engaged to, and soon after sets her sights on Rickie. She doesn't necessarily love him like she did her fiance, but she does care for him and....he comes from a very rich aunt...his father's last living sister. Agnes is greatly motivated by the thought that perhaps someday the money and estate will be left to Rickie, so she snags Rickie and marries him. Ansell, who thinks of Rickie marrying Agnes as a near death catastrophe, pretty much writes Rickie off and won't return his letters or come to visit. Agnes insists that Rickie forge a relationship with his aunt, and when they quarrel and Rickie leaves his aunt's estate, Agnes maintains a correspondence and friendship with the aunt. The quarrel is all about Rickie being forced to spend time with his aunt's ward, Stephen, a young man a couple of years younger than Rickie. Stephen has been raised by the aunt since he was a young boy when both of HIS parents died. Though raised as a gentleman, he's really spent more time out on the land with the laborers of the estate and acts more like the farmers, i.e., he comes off as being a lower social level. He can be outspoken and a bit brutish, and he's also good-looking and athletic. When the aunt sets Rickie and Stephen up to spend the day together, they don't get along well at all and end up going their separate ways. When Rickie comes home alone, the aunt is mad at them both and ends up spilling to Rickie that Stephen is actually his half-brother!! She won't tell him the details and regrets even saying anything afterwards. Rickie is furious and humiliated that his father had another son while married to his mother. After regretting her words, the aunt, Rickie and Agnes all make a pledge not to ever tell another soul that Stephen is actually Rickie's half brother. Of course, Agnes' motivation is that she doesn't want Stephen to have a claim on the aunt's estate or money. The aunt's motivation is that she's just a spiteful, controlling old woman (who we find out later in the book is only 59!!). They write these "old" people as so crotchety and she's only a year older than me, acckk! Anyway, Rickie's motivation is the humiliation he feels for his mother...yet Rickie is the only one who has a guilty conscience about it. He goes on with his life, becoming an assistant school-master with Agnes' older brother, Herbert, and he, Agnes and Herbert live at the school with the boys who attend. Agnes becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl who is more crippled than Rickie was, and she doesn't live for more than a few days. :-( This doesn't do much to help a pretty much already loveless marriage, and it sends Rickie into despair. He goes through the motions of his life, but isn't really living with happiness. Soon, both Ansell and Stephen come back into his life...but the two of them meet each other first! Ansell has come to town, but because they are both prideful, neither Rickie or Ansell will make the first move to see each other. Stephen comes bopping in at the house where Ansell is staying and tries to introduce himself to the stranger. Ansell, still being his aloof, philosophical self, doesn't respond to the "good morning", because he doesn't think it IS a good morning. Stephen gets into a tussle with Ansell for his rudeness and Ansell comes to like Stephen in those few minutes, because Stephen is just a real person exhibiting real human emotions with no misgivings. He finds out from Stephen that he's there to see his half-brother, Rickie!!! Stephen doesn't even know that Ansell knows Rickie, and Stephen is very excited to tell Rickie that he just found out he's his half-brother. He even shows Ansell the papers that prove the lineage. However, when Stephen goes over to see Rickie, he refuses to see him and instead Agnes confronts Stephen with her checkbook and asks how much money he has come to blackmail them for to keep quiet that he and Rickie are half-brothers. She tells Stephen that both she and Rickie have known for two years that they are half-brothers, as well as their aunt, and had promised never to tell. Stephen is completely taken aback and even those he's completely broke, refuses her money and quietly leaves the house. Ansell, who had finally decided to make the first move, was just coming into the house as Stephen was leaving. Rickie finally sees Ansell and goes to embrace him, but Ansell is more concerned about why that "young man" just left the house and whether or not he and Rickie talked. Ansell finally blurts out, don't you see?? That's your brother! When Rickie says he knows, Ansell can't believe that Stephen refused to see or even get to know his own brother. Rickie explains that he could never accept the son of the man who cheated on his beloved mother. That's when Ansell informs him that Stephen is Rickie's half-brother by his mother!!! Rickie has to be carried and put to bed at the realization that it was his mother and not his father who was the betrayer. (His father HAD been an ass who had all kinds of affairs first and his mother finally fell in love with Stephen's father and ran away with him, only to have Stephen's father drown after two weeks.) So, Rickie tries to find Stephen, but he has already gone. A few nights later, Stephen breaks into the house drunk and wants to confront Rickie. Rickie takes that as a sign that Stephen has come back to forgive him. It takes alot of convincing during the sober next morning, but he is just about to get Stephen to stay so they can get to know each other when Agnes interferes yet again and cries and screams that Stephen needs to go. Stephen heads out the door but he asks Rickie to leave these people behind and come with him...and he does!! Rickie and Stephen take refuge at Ansell's house! Rickie is estranged from his wife and starts his writing again, but as he used to do, fails when he submits his writings to be published. He's just not good enough. One day Rickie's aunt writes for him to come and visit her, so he does. Characteristic of Stephen, he hops on the train as well at the last minute and insists he'll stay out of the way since the aunt booted him out of her house for constantly being drunk and actually wanted to have him shipped to the colonies to work! Rickie only agrees to let Stephen come if he promises he won't drink, and he does. Rickie goes to see his aunt, who of course tries to convince him to go back to Agnes. When he explains to his aunt that he can't do that and he just wants to write, she actually doesn't argue with him. On his way to get Stephen at a neighbor's, Rickie is met by one of the laborers who tells Rickie that Stephen isn't at the neighbor's, but at the pub drinking! Rickie can't believe it, but then sees it for himself and can't believe that Stephen broke his promise to him not to drink. Rickie is standing on a bridge lamenting when the laborer comes by and asks him if he didn't see Stephen come by since he'd left the bar. At that moment, a slow moving train shows up on the train tracks and in it's shining light, they can see the drunk Stephen fallen and splayed over the train trackss. Rickie has time to get to Stephen and heave him aside, but no time to get himself off the track and he is killed. :-( The book ends with a sober and married Stephen putting finishing touches on some of Stephen's short stories to be published posthumously! He's got a wife and a very young little daughter. He's got the life that Stephen could never quite get for himself. He takes his little daughter out in a warm blanket to sleep under the stars like he used to do when he was a kid. He wants to teach her the good things in life. He kisses her head and we find out he's named his little daughter after his and Rickie's mother. And, that's the end. Such a sad, torturous life for Rickie, really, but I guess we're left with the hope of Stephen, his daughter and his future children. A very well written book, with lots of metaphors, particularly relating man and nature, that probably mostly went over my head...still a good book though. :-)