SOURCE: "Hazards of An Honest Life," in Washington Post Book World, June 3, 1973, p. 3.

Below, Hynes notes that Forster's recently published sexual fantasies lack artistic merit but command interest for their honesty.

"I am quite sure I am not a great novelist," Forster once remarked in an interview. "Because I have only got down on to paper really three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I like." There is a charming, Forsterian modesty in that judgment, but we had better take it seriously; Forster was a penetrating critic, and he knew the value of what he had done. His remark describes what less-than-great fiction is like, but it also describes the personal, limited sources out of which it rises. Forster knew that he was not a great novelist, and he knew why—because he was locked in himself...