The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen ~ 1935. This edition: Knopf, 1936. Hardcover. 270 pages.
This novel is stiff with secrets. Everyone is hiding something, and the frequent silences are screaming with unspoken words.
What a tense novel, and what a compelling one, too. Such beautiful writing by Elizabeth Bowen. Though I found I was always being kept an arm’s-length away; the reader is very much the spectator here, privy to all of the secrets, but never sure quite what the next moment will bring.
A commenter on my recent post on Bowen’s The Little Girls mentioned the Henry James-like qualities of The House in Paris. Bang on, that comparison is. And, though I am a dedicated Jamesian at heart, I do find he can be a challenge to really get one’s head around. As is this novel. I had to pay attention, no room at all for straying thoughts.
The novel is set in three acts, as it were. Present-Past-Present. We are thrown into the middle of a certain situation, given a long flashback episode to explain how we got there, and then returned to the situation in time to see it come to its climax and continue on its way.
In brief:
Two British children meet in a small house in Paris. One, 11-year-old Henrietta, is breaking her journey from England to her grandmother’s home in Mentone. She is there for a few hours only, in between train connections. The other child is 9-year-old Leopold. He has travelled from Italy where he lives with his adoptive American family to meet with his real mother – whom he has never known since his birth – at her request.
There is a vast mystery surrounding Leopold and his origins; Henrietta is provided with the barest of explanations as to who he is and what he is there for, but she is warned not to speak of such things to him, or to anyone else.
The rest of the novel is involved with Leopold’s back story, and that of his mother, culminating with a sudden change in Leopold’s circumstances, which may or may not go well for him. Henrietta fades in to the distance, mute witness to what has gone on.
That’s all I am going to say, because otherwise I’d be here all the night! There’s a lot going on in here; Bowen puts her characters through the works.
One could open this book to any page and find a passage worthy of reading over and over and turning about in your mind like a sharply faceted gem, all a-glint with captured light. I will treat you to several which stood out for me, to give you a sense of the quality of the writing here.
It is a wary business, walking about a strange house you know you are to know well. Only cats and dogs with their more expressive bodies enact the tension we share with them at such times. The you inside you gathers up defensively; something is stealing upon you every moment; you will never be quite the same again. These new unsmiling lights, reflections and objects are to become your memories, riveted to you closer than friends or lovers, going with you, even, into the grave: worse, they may become dear and fasten like so many leeches on your heart. By having come, you already begin to store up the pains of going away.
and
She thought, young girls like the excess of any quality. Without knowing, they want to suffer, to suffer they must exaggerate; they like to have loud chords struck upon them. Loving art better than life they need men to be actors; only an actor moves them, with his telling smile, undomestic, out of touch with the everyday which they dread. They love to enjoy love as a system of doubts and shocks. They are right: not seeking husbands yet, they have no reason to see love socially. This natural fleshly protest against good taste is broken down soon enough; their natural love of the cad is outwitted by their mothers. Vulgarity, inborn like original sin, unfolds with the woman nature, unfolds with it quickly and has a flamboyant flowering in the young girl. Wise mothers do not nip it immediately; that makes for trouble later, they watch it out.
and
On the platform before their long journey, to speak of a next meeting would have been out of place… Good-byes breed a sort of distaste for whomever you say good-bye to; this hurts, you feel, this must not happen again. Any other meeting will only lead back to this. If to-day good-bye is not final, some day it will be; doorsteps, docks and platforms make you clairvoyant…
So there we have it.
Elizabeth Bowen.
Each word carefully, deliberately, elegantly placed where it will have the most impact.
I feel the tiniest bit out of my own humble place in boldly assigning a numerical rating to my reading of the book, but here it is: 9/10.
And then there’s this, from the back jacket of my edition. I remember comparing Bowen’s work to that of Rose Macaulay, before I knew of their connection. Called that one right, didn’t I?! I am beyond pleased with myself, as I’d already shelved these two together. Score one for the reader. Now, do I move Henry James, too? 😉
Leaves & Pages 
I loved this book, you’re right, you do have to pay attention, as ever with Elizabeth Bowen. The scenes at the beginning in that house in Paris are so evocative.
Yes, evocative and I think one could also call the novel haunting. The emotions of the characters are very real and raw, aren’t they?
Very intriguing and now on my TBR list.
I hope you will enjoy it. Well, maybe “enjoy” isn’t the right word – it is a bit harrowing to the reader! Such interesting writing, though. Yes, enjoyable is apt, on second thought.
Sounds a bit like du Maurer’s writing–Rebeccaesque? Perhaps?
Honestly – no. Not at all like du Maurier. More, let’s see…well, that Henry James comparison is very apt.
The writing is very stylized; sometimes it reads like the author is so in love with her convoluted sentences that she loses the thread of her human narrative. There’s always a bit of distance; we are very much spectators; I never once related to one of her characters on anything like a “that could be me” level. Rebecca (the novel) is absolutely seething with relatability compared to this one! And du Maurier in her style and writing craft never reaches the mastery which Elizabeth Bowen displays in such overwhelming abundance. Daphne du Maurier can be “fun” to read; the two Elizabeth Bowen’s I’ve recently tackled could never be called fun. “Interesting”, oh yes!
The House in Paris is a little bit like being trapped in a spectator’s seat while the actors in front of you sob their hearts out and rip apart their fellow actors’ emotions. Fascinating because of the craft of the players, but after a time one’s own emotions get a bit strained. I caught myself, here and there, glancing at my theoretical watch, just checking to see if it was getting close to time to leave! 😉 Which I have seldom down with Daphne du Maurier, except perhaps in things like Mary Anne, which never “took” with me, and those rather dire first novels, The Loving Spirit and I’ll Never be Young Again – apprenticeship books, those two were! (In my opinion.)
I wonder if this has clarified things, or just muddled them further! 🙂
I’m definitely even more intrigued now to find the book!
I’ve never read anything by Rose Macaulay. Any suggestions on where to begin?
Elaine
Oh, what a question to have to answer! Well, I have to say I find Rose Macaulay an interesting writer in thaty some of her novels are “straight” and some are what one might tern “fantastical-experimental”. The conventionally-structured ones are likely the easiest way in, at least in my experience. So I am going to point you to one of my favourites of hers, The World My Wilderness. I wrote about it here. Next favourite would be Crewe Train, which is utterly nonsensical in places but a glorious diversion. Link is here. I know Crewe Train is fairly easy to find, as is The Towers of Trebizond which I would recommend reading after you’ve introduced yourself to Macaulay with one of the others (but you could start there), and I’m not sure about accessibility of The World My Wilderness. Perhaps not quite so easy to track down, though a quick check on Abebooks tells me you can pick a paperback copy up for under $20 Canadian. Or try the library? Branches in larger centres might well have Rose Macaulay in the stacks. There is one thing about Rose Macaulay – she never wrote the same book twice!
I didn’t quite know what to make of this. I admired the quality of Bowen’s writing – the subtlety, the restraint, the observation of those quiet moments you could almost miss, although you know they’re pivotal. But her distancing technique left me unable to engage with the characters.
Absolutely. It’s a beautifully crafted piece of writing but there is always that distance. I found that I admired it as an artifact (as it were) without it being a book I could immerse myself in. In this book I see Bowen’s world with great clarity and admire the fine detail she paints it in, but I am never drawn into it myself; it remains a “foreign” place, no matter how much I empathize with the characters.
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