What Was Forster Thinking About This Week?

E.M. Forster's letters range across numerous subjects - his day-to-day experiences and attitudes, the books he wrote and read, the times he lived in. By sifting through these, undergraduate Colette Sensier and the Cambridge Authors team have put together an unusual virtual diary of what was on Forster's mind at different times of the year. On this page you'll find what he was thinking this week; and this will change regularly. If you wish, you can receive these updates, approximately once a week, by e-mail. Just enter your email address in the box below to receive your own 'Forster's Thought for the Week'. A great variety of thought-provoking material will come through - sometimes sad, sometimes serious, sometimes quirky and even a little objectionable. Do you see things the same way he did?

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WHAT WAS FORSTER THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK?

In March 1918 he was thinking about the dehumanising effects of war. While working for the Red Cross in Alexandria, Egypt, during the First World War, Forster had a relationship with Mohammed-el-Adl. He wrote to his confidante Florence Barger about his anxiety for news of his lover under 'the shadow of tragedy’. 'The trouble is to get at these people’, he wrote. 'They are so insignificant, the army just shovels them around like dirt.’ He thought bleakly about the effects of battles and bureaucracy: 'Will the war leave nothing in the world but a card index?’ (Source: Selected Letters of E.M. Forster, ed. Mary Lago and P.N. Furbank (London: Collins, 1983-1985), letter of 23 March 1918)


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