E. M. Forster's Collected Short Stories

There's a strange, irrational defensiveness which creeps over people when something they like is picked apart. We know that it shouldn't matter what someone else dislikes, but it bothers us; as a feeling, it's started wars in its time.

So perhaps my reaction of dismay when someone told me that they didn't rate E. M. Forster suggests that he is one of my all-time favourite authors.

I suppose what I like most about his writing is the contemplative humanism, often communicated through wit and irony, which pervades his works. Yes, Where Angels Fear to Tread may have a simple, almost predictable narrative - but there is so much insight there, so much which holds a mirror up to society and remains valid to this day: ironic but nuanced exposés of class and custom; meditative deconstructions of commonly held assumptions.

Contemplative humanism

These themes echo through his other works. In A Passage to India and A Room with a View, E. M. Forster doesn't just parody the tourist who can't see past their guidebook, but - quite bravely (for the period) - tackles ingrained social prejudices in cross-cultural encounters, and the consequences for those who break the mould.

And in this way, E. M. Forster's short stories are no different, hosting a cast of intriguingly modern narrators, who paint romantic watercolours with one hand whilst sketching skits with the other. Some, such as The Story of a Panic or The Point of It are anecdotal tales of enigmatic occurrences, which are left open to the reader's interpretation. And often, E. M .Forster blurs the line between realistic and fantastic, imbuing the space with - again, enigmatic - neo-classical references.

Another great power in E. M .Forster's writing is his ability to hold an intriguing narrative whilst elevating the whole piece to a completely abstract plane. For instance, The Other Side of the Hedge tells the tale of a man who walks a path and is one day tempted to look on the other side of the hedge.. but the story becomes a near-parabolic deconstruction of Progress with a capital P - I probably need to add: in a good way. Similarly, The Celestial Omnibus is a surreal tribute to Poetry and Romanticism, through the vehicle of, well, the Celestial Omnibus.

But one of E. M. Forster's real masterpieces comes in the form of The Machine Stops. I first became aware of it (quite ironically) through Stephen Fry on Twitter, when he posted a link to a free online version of the text. (There are plenty of online sources for the text, if you google, but I read it, and all the other short stories, in the 1954 Penguin paperback). Set in a world where humans only interact through the Machine, humanity's self-constructed life-support mechanism, the tale is almost more relevant today (with our increasing dependence on technology and communication through social media) than when it was first published, and it is well worth the read.

I can say no more than that I heartily recommend E. M. Forster's short stories, and that if you have liked his longer prose, you are sure not to be disappointed.