5/15/2023 0 Comments Book where angels fear to treadHer brother-in-law, Philip, is sent to rescue her from the ghastly entanglement, but too late. She unexpectedly marries Gino, a young Italian, who is transparently a fortune hunter, but who is not a bad man. The story starts with Lilia, a foolish young widow who is sent off to Italy from her native England (with Augusta, a tactful spinster lady friend as duenna) to separate her from a suitor who is viewed as undesirable. Good intentions never excuse bad outcomes. It would be a different story, but it would have the same disastrous ending. It occurred to me that a modern version of this confrontation might be equivalent to that between today’s self righteous public arbiters of politically correct morality and those whom they presume to guide. The confrontation of the severe and repressed English with the passionate and unbuttoned Italian seems somewhat dated now–or at least, it seems to me that the national characters of both countries have changed dramatically. How I admire the writing and the scope-Forster has always been a favorite of mine. I only remembered I had already read this upon arriving at the penultimate and terrible scene, the coach accident.
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