Published more than a century ago, A Room with a View was both innocent and very thought provoking.
The premise of the novel is a girl, Lucy, who is enjoying herself on her very first trip out of England. We find Lucy in Florence where she and her chaperonne are enjoying the sights. Florence is a very beautiful city, where the carefree way of life, slowly affects does visiting it.
Lucy is still a very innocent young girl who thinks the world can be captured in the confines of a book or a room or a painting.
But her life suddenly rocks when she encounters the rather crude George through unfortunate circumstances of a room mix up.
Caught in the trifles of English manners, she's forced to shun George and his father, even though she doesn't feel like doing it and breaks character repeatedly.
This ends in a chance encounter between Lucy and George in a field of violets, that will change her life altogether. The only misfortune is that they aren't the only one's there.
Lucy is dragged away from him to resume her life in England.
Where she suddenly isn't sure anymore of what she wants.
Where she says yes to a marriage proposal.
Where she is so unlike herself.
But also where she grows into the woman she is meant to be, although with a nudge or two.
A Room with a View surprised me in tackling very women-friendly themes. I've read more of the same, of course, but I like the way in which George and his father stimulate Lucy to have a mind of her own instead of she herself being the main force of her attitude change.
In Lucy's coming of age there isn't so much room for doubt, even though she's sometimes stubborn and inquisitive, in the manner in which everyone around her is helping her becoming who she wants to be.
In the end love conquers all, doesn't it?
And because I love that city so much that I spend my honeymoon there, I'm going to leave you mesmerizing after the most beautiful Italian city I've seen so far!
