Genuine and Distorted Communication in Autobiographical Writing: E.M. Forster's 'West Hackhurst' and Its Contexts

E.M. Forster's memoir of life in Surrey and relations with his ground landlords there the Farrer family, concentrating on the period 1925-46, remained unpublished at his death. Although it seems to have a simple chronological narrative, and to give vent to some pretty raw and indiscreet confessions and complaints, I argue in this chapter that it should be understood as an example of 'autobiografiction' (Saunders 2010), a complex and artful combination of elements of fiction and life-writing. The importance of 'West Hackhurst' as a piece of literature is both its long-neglected importance to Forster's own view of his life, and as a powerful meditation on, and representation of, the failure of human communication.