A group of rich people cling on to their privilege as the Irish troubles reach crisis point. I didn't enjoy Bowen's overly descriptive style and I couldn't sympathise with any of the characters. Others have enjoyed it and Susan Hill raved about it (which was why I picked it up), but it was not in any shape or form written for me, a working class left-winger with a deep mistrust and loathing of aristocracy.

She did not want to go down to the courts again; she knew that if Mrs Kerr sat on here, watching her meditatively, her play would all go to pieces.

‘I have heard so much of your service. Today I am really going to watch it.’

‘This is one of my off days.’ ‘

Dear Sydney, whenever I come you tell me it’s one of your off days.’ Mrs Kerr laughed. ‘I’m unlucky.’

‘Oh, do you notice that? From the moment you come here I never hit anything.’

‘What on earth do you mean, my dear Sydney! How terribly sinister! It had never occurred to me that my eye might be evil. I meant something much more prosaic – that I happen to miss things.’

 

Well, I somewhat sympathise with Mrs. Kerr. I, too, miss things, and one of things I have missed was the point of this book. I have heard so much praise of Bowen's work that reading her first novel was a huge let down. 

 

I first read about the The Hotel in connection with the censorship of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. When reading up on the history of the trial and the ban of the book in the UK, some of the sources cite other books published in 1928 which also are attributed with a lesbian theme. Anyway, one of the articles referred to The Hotel not being considered for censorship because it was too "reticent".  

 

Reticent, indeed. I had no expectations (or indeed any particular wish) to read about any romantic entanglements between the main characters, but I did expect the book to have story or a point but it seems that even these eluded me.

 

The Hotel is about a group of English tourists (mostly women) who holiday in a hotel in Italy. There is a group of older women, a few younger ones and the two main characters - Mrs. Kerr and Sydney. The tourists basically provide the soundboard of conventional upper-middle class society against which Mrs Kerr and Sydney develop their friendship, though Mrs Kerr is characterised so ambiguously that it is difficult to say whether she is one of the old "conventionals" or not.

 

Anyway, so during the holiday, Sydney meets Mrs Kerr and the two become friends and somewhat abstain from mingling with the rest of the guests. Their friendship is somewhat disrupted, however, when Mrs Kerr's son arrives at the hotel and one of the other guests, a clergyman, falls in love with Sydney and proposes to her. She refuses, then accepts, then breaks it off. Then guest start to depart.

 

Really, there is not much of a story.

 

What was more aggravating than the non-story was the writing. Yes, there were some great paragraphs, one my favourites being:

 

"On still spring nights the thud of a falling lemon would be enough to awake one in terror."

 

However, they were so few embedded in so much pretentious drivel that just would not come to any point. 

 

‘There are situations in life,’ said Mrs Pinkerton, ‘face to face with which one is powerless.’ Though she only meant that in the struggle for life one is sorely handicapped by the obligations of nobility.

 

 

The only character that made me finish the book was Sydney, who is a straight forward sensible character.

 

‘Doesn’t it rain? I like it!’ she was moved to exclaim. ‘If I were Monet and alive now, I would paint this and present the picture to the P.L.M. as a poster for the Côte d’Azur.’ She smiled out at the rain with an air of complicity. 

bookshelves: radio-4, autumn-2011, published-1949, fradio, wwii

 

Introduction

First Stories

--Breakfast
--Daffodils
--The Return
--The Confidante
--Requiescat
--All Saints
--The New House
--Lunch
--The Lover
--Mrs Windermere
--The Shadowy Third
--The Evil that Men Do --
--Sunday Evening
--Coming Home

The Twenties

--Ann Lee's
--The Parrot
--The Visitor
--The Contessina
--Human Habitation
--The Secession
--Making Arrangements
--The Storm
--Charity
--The Back Drawing-Room
--Recent Photograph
--Joining Charles
--The Jungle
--Shoes: An International Episode
--The Dancing-Mistress
--Aunt Tatty
--Dead Mabelle
--The Working Party
--Foothold
--The Cassowary
--Telling
--Mrs Moysey

The Thirties

--The Tommy Crans
--The Good Girl
--The Cat Jumps
--The Last Night in the Old Home
--The Disinherited
--Maria
--Her Table Spread
--The Little Girl's Room
--Firelight in the Flat
--The Man of the Family
--The Needlecase
--The Apple Tree
--Reduced
--Tears, Idle Tears
--A Walk in the Woods
--A Love Story
--Look at All Those Roses
--Attractive Modern Homes
--The Easter Egg Party
--Love
--No. 16
--A Queer Heart
--The Girl with the Stoop

The War Years

--Unwelcome Idea
--Oh, Madam ...
--Summer Night
--In the Square
--Sunday Afternoon
--The Inherited Clock
--The Cheery Soul
--Songs My Father Sang Me
--The Demon Lover
--Careless Talk
--The Happy Autumn Fields
--Ivy Gripped the Steps
--Pink May
--Green Holly
--Mysterious Kôr
--The Dolt's Tale

Post-War Stories

--I Hear You Say So
--Gone Away
--Hand in Glove
--A Day in the Dark

Bibliographical Note

Lara Feigel, the author of The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War, was one of the interviewees on a very interesting, 2013 episode of BBC's The Culture Show entitled "Wars of the Heart". "Wars of the Heart" explained that whilst for many Londoners during the Second World War, the Blitz was a terrifying time of sleeplessness, fear and loss, some of London's literary set found inspiration, excitement and freedom in the danger and intensity. The imminent threat of death giving life an immediacy, spontaneity and frisson absent during peace time. 

The Culture Show documentary seems to have been inspired to some extent by The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War as they both cover similar territory, albeitLara Feigel's account goes into much more detail. 

In this book, Lara Feigel explores the war time experiences of five writers: Graham Greene, Elizabeth Bowen, Rose Macaulay, Henry Yorke (aka Henry Green), and Hilde Spiel. During the Blitz, and with the very real chance of not surviving the next 24 hours, the social classes mingled more freely, in the underground and the streets, and, in some cases, with partners and/or children evacuated, there was the opportunity for extra marital affairs.

Between them, the writers profiled were variously ARP wardens, an ambulance driver, and an auxiliary fireman. Hilde Spiel was the odd one out, being an Austrian exile, with responsibility for her parents and a young child. Her story is an interesting and informative counterpoint to those of the other four writers. 

Lara Feigel uses letters, diaries, and fiction, along with historical information, to illuminate the lives of these writers during and after the Second World War, before summarising what became of them all.

I enjoyed this book very much however I think Lara Feigel chose to go into a bit too much detail. My edition was 465 pages, with another 55 pages of notes and acknowledgements. I would have preferred a more succinct account. That said, I come away from this original book, more knowledgeable about five interesting writers, and keen to read more books by these writers, in particular these books specifically inspired by this period...

Caught by Henry Green
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene