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To the North

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TO THE NORTH was one of the most praised of Elizabeth Bowen's novels during her lifetime, but it is less well known today than her other mature works THE DEATH OF THE HEART or THE HOUSE IN PARIS, in part because it is perhaps a more difficult read than either of those two of her masterworks. As with all of Bowen's novels, it is primarily concerned with what Bowen calls in THE DEATH OF THE HEART "the edited life," the life of the upper middle class who refuse to speak of how they truly feel or what they truly want with one another. In TO THE NORTH, Bowen herself emphasizes this sense of preterition by herself refusing to tell her readers what her characters are feeling; since they themselves often speak around what they want or say the opposite, we must intuit from the whole of their actions what they truly mean. Hers is a world, she suggests, where all readers are naive interpreters, like the innocent teenager Pauline in this novel (one of Bowen's many Jamesian ingenues) who rarely understands how the adults around her are always at cross-purposes with her and one another; the best readings we can do then are always re-readings.

The glittering social world of this novel, coupled with its stylistic flourishes and sometimes absurd characters make the novel at times seem almost as akin to Firbank or to Waugh as to Henry James, Bowen's usual point of comparison; certainly one of its heroines, Cecilia, could easily stand among Waugh's coterie of Bright Young Things. Cecilia lives in St. John's Wood with her dead husband's sister Emmeline; although the women rarely spend time with one another, they come to love each other in ways they cannot even articulate. Cecilia is courted by Julian, Pauline's uncle, while the more placid and unworldly Emmeline embarks on a secret affair with Markie, a young rotter who has also flirted with Cecilia; their entanglements play out statically in the sparkling if inhuman comic world of weekend visits to country houses and crowded London cocktail parties. But in her brief experiences of travel and speed--in an airplane or in a car--Emmeline finds her heart and her secret affair quickening. These episodes, which provide Bowen with her most virtuoso episodes in the novel, suggest how the unavoidable encounter modernity has forever changed the traditional world of the novel of manners in the twentieth century, and hurl Bowen's novel towards its unforgettable violent conclusion. It's a tough novel, but it is more than worth the effort.

I have praised the beautiful Anchor editions of Elizabeth Bowen before (for instance, THE HOUSE IN PARIS or her masterpiece THE DEATH OF THE HEART), and this one, with its luscious portrait of a society beauty on the cover, is no exception. But back-cover blurbs can be deceiving. For instance: "A young woman's secret love affair leads to a violent and tragic act in one of Elizabeth Bowen's most acclaimed novels." True enough as far as it goes, but it totally hides the fact that, for most of its length, TO THE NORTH (1932) plays as a social comedy in the manner of Jane Austen. Consider this sentence: "The other guests for the week-end were a young married couple, the Blighs, who might, Lady Waters was certain, still save their marriage if they could get right away from people and talk things out, and a young man called Farquharson who had just broken off his engagement on Lady Waters' advice." How deliciously the added detail about Farquharson casts doubt on Lady Waters' view of the poor Blighs! Contrast the impression of Lady Waters' husband, virtually channeling the whole line of not-quite-in-touch Austen father-figures: "Those young Blighs seem devoted, never apart; it's quite pretty to see them." Read slowly enough to savor, this is a very funny book.

Bowen's subjects, like Austen's, are typically young women in adolescence or early adulthood. But, as Henry James did in THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, she takes them out of their domestic surroundings and thrusts them into modern society. Bowen gives us two young ladies: a young widow, Cecilia Summers, and her sister-in-law Emmeline, an independent businesswoman who runs a travel bureau (travel by train, air, or auto plays a significant part in the novel). Although close friends, the two are strongly contrasted: Cecilia stylish, but emotionally exhausted and barely able to cope with practical matters; Emmeline supremely competent, but shy and emotionally naive. For most of the book, very little happens, but we can deduce a great deal, in Jamesian fashion, by reading in between the lines of what does. That "affair," for instance, is implied only through hints. By the end of her career, as in THE HEAT OF THE DAY (1949), Bowen would describe sexual relationships unambiguously if not in detail, but in this relatively early novel (1932) she is almost as reticent as James himself. In both books, she is less interested in the facts of a relationship than its ultimate effects.

Bowen does a lot by indirect means. The book is full of landscape descriptions, evocative in themselves, and even more so as a reflection of character. A man in a bad mood walks in a suburban park: "Then someone's wife opened a cold piano: she tinkled, she tippetted, she struck false chords and tried them again. God knows what she thought she was doing. The notes fell on his nerves like the drops of condensed mist all round on the clammy beech-branches." Contrast his optimistic lover: "The glades of St. John's Wood were still at their brief summer: walls gleamed through thickets, red may was clotted and crimson, laburnums showered the pavements, smoke had not yet tarnished a leaf. The heights of this evening had an airy superurbanity: one heard the ping of tennis-balls, a man wheeled a barrow of pink geraniums, someone was practising the violin, sounds and late sunshine sifted through the fresh trees."

This feeling for ambience is essential to the bookend chapters that frame TO THE NORTH and give the book its title -- two journeys, both at night: a train trip from Milan to Calais in the rain, and a car drive northwards out of London. They balance one another with a symmetry that holds the entire novel between them, brilliantly contrasting the two central women, and answering the earlier comedy with seriousness. The novel may have flaws -- it flags about half-way through, and the men are less well-realized than the women -- but it remains a penetrating study of the interwar period when many women were looking to define themselves other than through traditional society expectations. And when Bowen pulls everything together in the last fifty pages, the result is quite simply magnificent.

I have read a lot of praise about this book recently and there seems to be a resurgence of people who are interested in Elizabeth Bowen and her works. She is mentioned in a lot of books I have read including Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill and Reading like a Writer by Francine Prose. I have been looking forward to reading this book as everyone says that it is probably one of her best. The story centers around two young women living in 1920s London. The recently widowed Cecilia Summers and her late husband's sister Emmeline, two unlikely friends drawn together because of the tragedy of losing a husband and brother. They begin to live together and their lives become intertwined. Cecilia begins to move towards a second marriage even though she is not sure that she can really ever love anyone. Emmeline who is gentle, independent, calm and sweet finds herself drawn to the predatory Mark Linkwater. This sets the stage for one large scope of a psychological story that leads to one life shattering moment.

I admired the writing of this story so much because Elizabeth Bowen does an excellent job at creating characters and describing their personalities so acutely it is easy to imagine each of these characters from their physical looks to their intense and different personalities. Not a lot happens in this novel story wise, when I tried to describe it to a friend after I had read the story I realized that it can sound boring, what is so wonderful about this book is the psychological acutely that becomes so absorbing and fascinating it makes the book hard to put down. It is easy to see why so many people love Elizabeth Bowen.

This finely wrought book is moving, believable and deep-probing. Its amazingly sharp insight goes hand in hand with a command of language that reminds the reader of Forster.