First off, let me say that the Anchor paperback edition is a pleasure to read, as are all the Bowen novels in this series. It has clean generous type, a binding that stays open, a cover that feels good in the hand, an attractive and totally relevant illustration, typography that captures both Bowen's elegance and her modernity, and -- wonder of wonders -- a back-cover blurb that brilliantly encapsulates the essence of this elusive novel. For example: "As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sharp sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations."
Not for nothing does the book-jacket writer compare Elizabeth Bowen to Henry James. For this is a very Jamesian subject. The recently-orphaned 16-year-old Portia, Bowen's heroine, is significantly older than James' Maisie (
WHAT MAISIE KNEW) and younger than his Isabel Archer (
THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY), but like them she is thrust into sophisticated society as a naive observer, and the book is mainly taken up by the author's razor-sharp dissection of that society and sensitive exploration of the heroine's feelings.
What is surprising here, even in comparison to Henry James or to the other Elizabeth Bowen novels that I have read (
THE LAST SEPTEMBER and
THE HOUSE IN PARIS), is that so little actually happens. Everything seems to point to a premature sexual affair which will proves disastrous for Portia, especially once she falls for the charms of the caddish Eddie, whose previous dalliances we have already seen described. Portia herself is the offspring of her father's late-life affair, which has forced him to leave his life of English respectability and to live abroad; there is a sense of unreliability in the bloodline. Even the title of the book, THE DEATH OF THE HEART, and the subtitles of its three major parts -- "The World," "The Flesh," and "The Devil" -- all seem to be leading in this direction.
And yet, while sexuality is always present in the subtext (another Jamesian quality), it never tips over into action. This is a book in which so simple an event as Eddie's holding the wrong girl's hand at a movie can have traumatic significance; there is no need to go farther. I can only think that Bowen's misdirection is deliberate. In the course of waiting for something to happen, the reader finds that he has absorbed countless details and impressions of everyday life that, taken cumulatively, have an even more devastating effect. This book is like a timed-release drug capsule; you may feel comparatively little after you have finished reading it, but it continues to work in the mind long after you have put it down.
In her three-part structure, Bowen contrasts two different strata of English society. The outer sections are set in the upper-class world of Portia's half-brother Thomas and his wife Anna, who live in an expensive house in one of the Nash Terraces fronting Regent's Park. Thomas is withdrawn and remote; Anna leads a busy social life with many male friends; they communicate only superficially with each other and hardly at all with Portia, who is forced to turn to the housekeeper, Matchett, as the nearest thing to a confidante. It is no wonder that she falls for Eddie, whom she sees as an outsider just like her. Meeting him at first assuages her loneliness, but his eventual small betrayals only serve to heighten it.
Contrasting with London society is a month that Portia spends with Anna's former governess Mrs. Heccomb, in an off-season seaside resort. Having been brought up in a similar resort town myself, I found Bowen's description of the wind-battered setting and the cheerfully rowdy life of the young people whom Portia meets there one of the most vivid sections of this excellently-observed book. While the apparently free-and-easy quality of this middle-class setting can be seen to have its own limitations and proprieties, it sends Portia back to town with an unbearable sense of the shallow frigidity of her life with Thomas and Anna. And the events of the weekend when Eddie comes down to join her, although slow to make their full effect, eventually alter their relationship (and Portia's view of herself) irretrievably.
One of the most poignant aspects of the book is its awareness of transience. Thomas and Anna are eminently settled in their house, their work, their society; even the constant motion of the Heccomb young people and their set is based on an underlying stability. But Portia's life has always been rootless, moving from one European hotel to another, staying out of season and in the cheapest rooms -- rootless with one vital exception: the security of her parents' love. Eddie's rootlessness is of a more dangerous variety, coming of having rejected the life of his still-living parents without creating anything significant of his own to replace it, but it takes Portia time to realize the essential difference between them. The theme is further reflected in one minor character who will become important at the end: the sad Major Brutt, who "had a good war" but has been rattling around since, growing rubber in Malaya, and now staying in a seedy London hotel waiting for something to turn up; it is a touching portrait, albeit a frightening one.
And what will happen to Portia? Will her heart remain dead? Is it indeed HER heart that dies? The book ends on a spiritual and psychological crisis, but it offers no resolution. Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part, but I do not see her life ending in either tragedy or pathos, despite the book's title. Portia's first innocence has been dispelled, certainly, but there is an energy in her, a drive towards the good which I believe will enable her to learn from her experiences and ultimately rise above them. Not the least of the qualities of this admirable edition which I praised at the beginning is the cover painting, which goes far to contractict the implications of the title and declare that this wonderful novel is not, after all, depressing.
