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The Death of the Heart
The Death of the Heart
Author: Elizabeth Bowen
The Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. 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 sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations. — In this piercing story o...  more »
ISBN-13: 9780140016901
ISBN-10: 0140016902
Publication Date: 7/2/1985
Pages: 318
Rating:
  • Currently 2.5/5 Stars.
 2

2.5 stars, based on 2 ratings
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 1
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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.


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