Virile Refinement

...Us muscularity Elizabeth Bowen's sentences are as tense as Henry James', they do not invite relaxation Angus Wilson in his Introduction to the present volume refers to the "greater genius" of Virginia Woolt, a judgment 1 am not sure I agree with, however much I can sec the basis for it in the astonishing grace of Woolfs mind Bowen's work does have some floating, delicate lines, but her natural inclination is to compression rather than suppleness, as if she must get all her thoughts out in one breath Reading these stories produced over four decades, one also notes that while their themes are remarkably consistent, the quality ot the writing is wildly uneven There are fiascos as well as gems from the beginning on up through the latest years The charmingly light-hearted "Breakfast" is the hrst piece in the book A mere peek at the travails of a boarder sharing a family breakfast, it nonetheless exhibits sparkling bits of dialogue and quick, bemused characterizations It opens with a great leap into the fray " 'Behold, I die daily,' thought Mr Rossiter, entering the breakfast-room He saw the family in silhouette against the windows There were so many of the family it seemed as though they must have multiplied during the night, their flesh gleamed pinkly in the cold northern light and they were always moving Often, like the weary shepherd, he could have prayed them to keep still that he might count them " The essence of various family members is distilled in a well-chosen utterance or two Hilary Bevel, sister of the insolent, sleek-headed Jerv is, exclaims inanely "Mr Rossiter's got another tie on, a crimson tie'" And Aunt Wtlloughby, a classic case ot the oblivious social being, holds forth volubly "'As my dear husband used to say,' Aunt Wtlloughby raised her voice, anticipating an interruption, 'there are those that can get good work out ot their servants and those that can't We mustn't set up about it, it's i usi a git l, like other git Is, that main haven't got I've had such a happy, happ\ home ' she sighed towards the attentive Miss Emily ' \lvvavs so comtortablc, it was " Another early story, " \\\ Saint's Dav, teauinne a \ icai and a visiting congregant who wants to buy her way into spiritual uplift, proves Bowen's formidable skill with the obliquities of talk '"I think the village is sweet—it does appeal to me,"' chirps the misguided visitor '"So quaint and homely I am staying here in lodgings, they are most uncomfortable, but I sleep well, and the eggs are fresh And then I love the country My real name is Mrs Barrows """Do you intend a long stay7' repeated the Vicar trying not to feel that her last sentence was peculiar " But "The Confidante" and "Lunch" fall entirely flat, and "The Shadowy Third" is an unsuccessfully rendered ghost story Although Bowen experimented with the device of unseen presences throughout her writing life, I find her best in her straightforward mode, where the shadows she describes are intimately connected to the civilized and rational order of things One of her most vivid and ongmally-conceived stones is "Sunday Evening,'' which calls to mind a painterly interior, a composition by Bonnard or Vuillard sprung to hfe A group of people lounge on sofas at dusk, volleying idle observations back and forth "They were talking about the First Woman, something had been said of her in the sermon that morning, and the thought had germinated in their minds all day " Purely through intimation, the conveyed swish and fall of voices, the story manages to invoke a growing unease '"Archie is feeling holy,' said Mrs McKenna T wonder what it feels like At present his mind is in the past When this present is the past it will linger longest in this particular part of the past (how difficult that was to say) Seven or eight Sundays hence, Archie, when you are in Africa, very lonely and primeval, leaning on your gun, you will think back to one Sunday evemng in the country " Acutely interested in the world of manners, Bowen is at the same time no less painfully conscious than James of the nullity and chaos that he threateningly just beyond its surfaces "Sunday Evening," is a quite pohshed instance of this —of what she refers to in one of her most famous stories, "Ivy Gripped the Steps," as "the helplessness, in the last resort, of society " The esthetics of domicile represent for her something more primordial than the comforts of home, to be inside, to reside, insured that you were not at the mercy of the outside "After all," she writes in a later story entitled "Human Habitation," "it all came back to this—individual outlook, the emotional factors of environment, houses that were homes, living rooms, people going out and coming in again, people not coming in, other people waiting for them in rooms that were little guarded squares of light walled in carefully against the hungry darkness, the ultimately all-devouring darkness ' T Jk...

...he other subject that obsessively engaged Bowen was innocence betrayed, the loss of childhood Childless herself, she seems to have had an almost perfect memory of the little girl she once was and her portraits of children are unfailingly full-bodied "Coming Home" is about the smallest breach of trust, a mother's absence upon her daughter's return from school, and it contains the seeds of the more complex treacheries that unfold in The House in Paris and Death of the Heart Twelve-year-old Rosalind comes home, glowing from a schoolroom triumph, to find her "Darhng-est" inexplicably away instead of waiting to hear about her essay that had been chosen to be read aloud...

...Writers &Writing VIRILE REFNEMENT BY DAPHNE MERKIN P. hotographs of Elizabeth Bowen usually show her looking out with mannish directness, the impression of force softened by feminine touches clusters of pearls at her neck, big brooches and always an ornamental pair of earrings There is a leonine spirit held captive in her expression According to Victoria Glendinmng's 1977 biography, she was a multipersoned woman, her artistic self tolerated by the country squire, and vice versa Of Anglo-Irish stock, she was immensely drawn to the idea of landedness—not, I think, out of proprietary interest, but as a response to the up-rootedness of her childhood Indeed, houses play an important part in her fiction, and her short stories are given to long opening descriptions of settings before they settle down to the plot at hand The Collected Stones of Elizabeth Bowen, (Knopf, 784 pp , $17 95) brings together the many tales Bowen wrote from her 20s onward When she died in 1973 her literary reputation was deep rather than wide—that is to say, she was admired intensely by those who did admire her She was known chiefly for her novels, especially for the genuine masterpieces—The House in Paris, The Death of the Heart, and The Heat of the Day If she stirs fewer imaginations than her friend Virginia Woolf or even Kathenne Mansfield, this may in part be due to the fact that Bowen's writing is more external and mired in period detail than either of the other women's, and thus time-bound But her lesser popularity also derives Irom the slight knottmess of her prose...

...How could she ever have left Darhngest7 She might have known, she might have known The sense of insecurity had been growing on her year by year A person might be part of you, almost part of your body, and yet once you went away from them they might utterly cease to be " Without the slightest condescension Bowen catches the stark, black-and-white quality of childhood emotion before it is tempered by maturity Either one is together or apart, loved or not loved Viewed from this perspective, adult intelligence—with its endless mediations—is a sort of witlessness All the stories about children have a resonance that is not always evident in the grown-up tales They are a sympathetic wink to stormy souls like Frederick, the seven-year-old in "Tears, Idle Tears" who just cannot stop crying "The eyes of Frederick seemed to her to be wounds, in the world's surface, through which its inner, terrible unassuageable, necessary sorrow constantly bled away and as constantly welled up " Bowen's style shed some of its frippery as the years passed, becoming less obviously literary Yet she occasionally seems to be priding herself on her own acuity, remarking upon characters with withenng accuracy "She was a person," Bowen writes of one Miss Phelps in "The Secession," "who came quickly and frothily to the boil, hke milk " It is not always clear, though, whether these samples of the author's finely-tuned powers of discernment serve any purpose beyond showing off She nevertheless has an excellent sense of the counterfeit intelligence and the ersatz pose In "The Back Drawing-Room" she writes "Miss Eve, who had been waiting for some time to catch Belhngham's eye, smiled at him with an air of secret understanding Back and behind the artist, the woman in her was enchanting this was what Miss Eve liked to convey " In the deeper vision of her better stories Bowen draws on this sense more sparingly and to greater effect Beginning with "A Love Story 1939," set during the blitz in London, there is a worn out strain clouding the bright images, a darkening of the light Release, rather than shelter, is longed for "Teresa went out and examined, as much by touch as anything, the wonderful car An idea of going away for ever lifted and moved her heart, like a tide coming in " The Collected Stories, with its small print and poor binding, is not a particularly attractive volume The author would have been better served, too, by a less inclusive gathenng But these are minor complaints Elizabeth Bowen is here in dazzling array, and the many facets of her talent, from the lacy to the virile, dart from the pages Just when she begins to sound a bit too refined, she lifts an eyebrow and sends you sprawling in the dirt...