The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen (novel #196)

The Death of the Heart is a modernist novel set mostly in London, between the first and second world wars. Elizabeth Bowen called it a “pre-war” novel, but apart from that, I find it difficult to categorize.

I’ve read of Bowen 

…her novels masquerade as witty comedies of manners

 

Which is pretty fair, but please mark the word masquerade. I don’t think Bowen intended witty comedies. I’ve also read that her stories

…mine the depths of private tragedy.

 

Yeah, that’s about right.

 

It is the story of 16-year-old Portia Quayne, orphaned and sent to live with her half-brother Thomas and sister-in-law Anna. The three are never quite comfortable with each other. Portia falls in love (I would say, thinks she falls in love) with Eddie, a friend of Anna’s and employee of Thomas’.

 

Eddie is a cad, a loafer, and a narcissist. And Portia is just too 16, to realize it.

 

When Portia told him she thought he was very good looking, he responded…

 

Well, I am, you see, and I’ve got all this charm, and I can excite people. They don’t really notice my brain – they are always insulting me. Everyone hates my brain, because I don’t sell that. That’s the underground reason why everyone hates me.

 

When he thought he told a witty joke, and asked Portia if she thought it was funny, and she said no, he replied defiantly…

 

Well, it was: it was very funny

 

Despising Eddie was my main investment in this story.  I just wasn’t all-in for the others. I worried for Portia, but that was about it. Thomas and Anna evoked even less emotion.

 

So, it’s rather sad. It doesn’t come to a satisfying ending, though perhaps a crisis that may force Portia, Thomas, and Anna to be more honest with each other.

 

I give Bowen high marks for her writing though. She had an elegant way of describing the mundane, and a knack of capturing funny little feelings that are rather unimportant, and yet somehow resonate. Such as when Anna realizes she has been spotted from outside the house, herself looking out a window. 

 

She knew how foolish a person looking out of a window from the outside of a house looks – as though waiting for something that does not happen, as though wanting something from the outside world.

 

I like it when authors can do that. 

For the writing more so than for the story…

My rating 3 ½ out of 5 stars

 

 This novel satisfies “classic that’s been on my TBR the longest” in the Back to the Classics 2022 Challenge.

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