The House in Paris review Ø 3

• Paperback
• 269
• The House in Paris
• Elizabeth Bowen
• English
• 14 June 2017
• 9780385721257

Elizabeth Bowen ✓ 3 summary

The House in Paris review Ø 3 Secrets that have the potential to topple a marriage and redeem the life of a peculiar young boy By the time Henrietta leaves the house that evening she is in possession of the kind of grave knowledge that is usually reserved only for adul What I just what Honestly I felt like I hardly understood a word of this gibberish Not than a few together anyway I did love The Last September and Death of the Heart but what even do the words in the order they are written here meanPart One is overwritten nonsense where children sound like haunted adults and far far too much describing and analyzing of delicate complicated gestures goes on not only for believability but interest I assure you at first I assumed this was my fault and I was missing something But reader I was not I dutifully re read metaphors multiple times in case this was a Virginia Woolf crack the ice situation I could not figure it outPart Two got better Thank goodness The part with Karen and Naomi and mom and the aunt and uncle I got it Still overwritten but we were all on the same plane of comprehension Even some iotas of brilliance that made me remember Oh right this lady wrote The Last September But then the central mystery came back on screen and things got awful again uicklyI persisted until page 185 willing it to get better Instead it got worse I have no idea what on earth she thought Karen or Max were saying half the time And when I did it was far too much effort to parse through for far too little meaningI can t I just can t with this one I m sorry And I am definitely the target audience for this I eat up repressed gazes and interwar melodrama on a regular basis Just one of those life s too short to read bad books situations Disappointing especially since other reviewers I generally trust loved this one but moving on Dictionary Of Dreams redeem the life of a peculiar young boy By the time Henrietta leaves the house that evening she is in possession of the kind of grave knowledge that is usually The Love of a Latino reserved only for adul What I just what Honestly I felt like I hardly understood a word of this gibberish Not than a few together anyway I did love The Last September and Death of the Heart but what even do the words in the order they are written here meanPart One is overwritten nonsense where children sound like haunted adults and far far too much describing and analyzing of delicate complicated gestures goes on not only for believability but interest I assure you at first I assumed this was my fault and I was missing something But Other Days Other Eyes reader I was not I dutifully Deception Island re The Family The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power read metaphors multiple times in case this was a Virginia Woolf crack the ice situation I could not figure it outPart Two got better Thank goodness The part with Karen and Naomi and mom and the aunt and uncle I got it Still overwritten but we were all on the same plane of comprehension Even some iotas of brilliance that made me The First Partition of Poland remember Oh The Hero of Varay Varyan Memoir right this lady wrote The Last September But then the central mystery came back on screen and things got awful again uicklyI persisted until page 185 willing it to get better Instead it got worse I have no idea what on earth she thought Karen or Max were saying half the time And when I did it was far too much effort to parse through for far too little meaningI can t I just can t with this one I m sorry And I am definitely the target audience for this I eat up Palestrina and other plays Five Plays by Don Nigro repressed gazes and interwar melodrama on a Blackmailed By Daddy regular basis Just one of those life s too short to उरलं सुरलं read bad books situations Disappointing especially since other Cock Tales reviewers I generally trust loved this one but moving on

The House in Paris review Ø 3 One of Elizabeth Bowen’s most artful and psychologically acute novels The House in Paris is a timeless masterpiece of nuance and construction and represents the very best of Bowen’s celebrated work When eleven year old Henrietta arrives Elizabeth Bowen is good with brackets The opening scene of one of her books can sometimes seem unrelated to what follows but when you read on an echo of the beginning often closes the story and you finally understand how neatly she has tied the many wide ranging episodes togetherIn this book there is not one but a series of bracketed episodes each opening further sections of back story Then she brings us back in stages to the beginning So neat

review The House in Paris

The House in Paris review Ø 3 At the Fishers’ well appointed house in Paris she is prepared to spend her day between trains looked after by an old friend of her grandmother’s Little does Henrietta know what fascinations the Fisher house itself contains–along with I bought the 1940 s penguin edition of this book which is really appealing in its simplicity No gimmicks bells or whistles It has a minimalist post war cover and the most animated looking penguin logo ever In hindsight perhaps the austerity was a nod to the emotional austerity shielded between the cover Slightly less appealing is the back page with the author photograph While I have no doubt that Elizabeth Bowen was probably a delightful woman the photographer has managed to catch her in a pose which has left her looking like Aunt Sally from the Wurzel Gummidge TV series which was probably not the look she was going for I like to think she was aiming for worldly and erudite but falling wide of the markI chose the House in Paris from the 1001 books list based on the name alone as I knew nothing of the plot and being incredibly lazy did not bother to investigate prior to purchase About Paris hmmm sounds lovely It s not a lively book nor is it particularly romantic or evocative of any kind of Parisian joie de vivre and for the majority of the time I was reading I kept imagining all the characters with those impossibly clipped BBC accents that were so prevalent in the 40 s and 50 s amongst the upper middle classes if you don t know what I mean listen to the ueens speech Needless to say this didn t help me to take them or their dilemmas seriously I disliked Leopold and Henrietta and found Charles the plush monkey who was only a toy to be a far animated and likeable character As for the adults who were responsible for the accidental conception of Leopold I found their story to be the most emotionally neutered love story I ve ever encountered Max and Karen plan their lovers tryst with stiff upper lips and military precision leaving the story with the residual romance of an abandoned fish supper on a wet weekend in Barry Island I suppose the saving grace is Madame Fisher a sinister corpse like bed bound figure who despite never making it past 15 degrees from the prone position still manages to meddle in everyones affairs Bowen has created a memorable villain here who knew an old biddy in a bed jacket could be so scary