The Istoriaphile’s Corner

The idea of travel always seems attractive, doesn’t it?  To leave behind our humdrum, everyday world and enjoy life as a tourist.  To picture ourselves in an exotic environment and perhaps, be transformed by our time in that place?  Fortunes have been made over the years in books on this subject: A Year in Provence; Eat, Pray, Love and Under the Tuscan Sun are just three examples. But the fact is, wherever we go, we take ourselves with us and most travelers come back home.  Lucy Honeychurch would be the first person to tell you that. Lucy is one of those Edwardian, English girls who will tell you real travel isn’t the flight of fancy you’d imagine.  She’s supposedly on this trip to Italy, to pick up some of the culture and sophistication of the continent but she hardly allowed within speaking distance of anyone truly Italian.  Her irritating, old-maid cousin is always at her side, the hotel’s land-lady has a cockney accent and all the other guests there are English as well.  To make things worse, the reservations got mixed up and she didn’t get A Room With a View. That’s the opening situation in E. M Forster’s story…