Bowen, Elizabeth (Vol. 3) - Bowen, Elizabeth 1899–1973
Bowen, Elizabeth 1899–1973
An Irish-born English novelist and short story writer, Ms. Bowen wrote brilliant and firmly traditional novels of human relationships. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 17-18.)
In Miss Bowen there is a great deal of poetry: it is what lightens her involutions, and if it sometimes drops to mere fancy (the French clock 'busy … on the chimneypiece, amid idling china'), that is appropriate—it serves her concern with 'atmosphere'. Where James articulates a whole culture, Miss Bowen conserves a particular place at a particular time; this is a feminine gift. The theme of The Death of the Heart is the massacre of innocence, but what we remember best is the scenery through which young, betrayed Portia passes—frosty Regent's Park, dingy hotel furniture. The House in Paris is really about its eponym; A World of Love, in which the real protagonist is the sensibility of the author, seems to be...
[The entire page is 2465 words long]
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