Tuesday, July 06, 2021

What Comes After Maurice


Well if I'd known this news last week when actor Rupert Graves -- who's best known as the dreamy on-screen realization of the idealized groundskeeper Scudder in James Ivory's 1987 gay classic Maurice, adapting EM Forster's novel -- celebrated his birthday I'd have given the occasion more than a tweet (seen below) but the full on and proper right post it deserves. 

What "news" you ask? Well today the New York Times alerts us to a new book called Alec by author William di Canzio, which tells us what comes after Alec aka Scudder's "happily ever after" with Maurice. And it sounds like it does so well! (Also the review's written by friend-of-MNPP Manuel Betancourt -- hey Manuel!) Now this looks like some great summer reading -- pick up a copy here at this link! Let's all read it together!


5 comments:

bdog said...

Once again, same page-I just read about the book today, and ordered it from Amazon.
Steven Moffat called Graves, 'One of the handsomest men ever', or something like that.
I must agree. Watched Maurice for the first time in forever last year, it's still fantastic. I really loved Graves with Kristin Scott-Thomas in Handful of Dust, and she's a beautiful monster in it.

Anonymous said...

All very well and good for Maurice and Scudder to find one another, but would it really be enough to keep them together? To me it seems reductionist to assume that two gay people would have enough in common just being gay to make a life together. It's the same trope that would have us believe love is a fairy tale and once found it is always "Happily Ever After.". It takes a vast willing suspension of disbelief to think they would actually have a successful long-term relationship.

Carl said...

Anonymous: I don't disagree about the fairy tale aspect of Maurice, but keep in mind the novel was written 1913-14, when any type of happy ending for a same-sex couple was extremely rare. In a "terminal note" about the novel, Forster wrote: “A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn’t have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense Maurice and Alec still roam in the greenwood. Happiness is its keynote--which by the way has had an unexpected result: it has made the book more difficult to publish.”

retropian said...

I'll have to give this a go. I very recently rewatched the film and reread the novel and found myself wishing someone would pen a sequel so we can catch up with them. How did they get through WW1, how did they survive between then and WW2? I'd love to see the original film cast return in a new film, perhaps set in the 1940's just after WW2 as 34yrs have passed since the original movies release. But perhaps it is best to leave it as is.

Anonymous said...

@Carl

A wonderful point, well made.