The Heat of the Day

This story of lovers during the bombing of London, with spy/ counter-spy plot lines can feel dense at times. But so worth it.

I agree with all of the reviews here more or less. Beautiful writing, humorous snippets, yet nothing seems to happen. In spite of this I could not put it down for the last hundred pages or so. There is a lot that is unexplained, and I kept trying to piece it all together after I was done. As a woman who can look back at my own life, I can see that Stella Rodney is a fully-fleshed character in spite of her indecisiveness and uncertain history. She is a mysterious femme fatale (watch the movie with Patricia Hodge) who is ultimately vulnerable and sympathetic. Also a back-story that is never quite revealed regarding her son's inheritance. I have since become obsessed with the author, even though admittedly this is not the most satisfying read.

"Imagine a Graham Greene thriller projected through the sensibility of Virginia Woolfe." When I read this Atlantic Monthly blurb on Elizabeth Bowen's "The Heat Of The Day," I thought, this is a book for me. It took me 200 pages before I became involved in the novel. I did not put it down earlier, because I must admit, objectively, that Elizabeth Bowen's writing style is elegant, and at times poetic. I was curious to learn what she wanted to say through the novel's characters and plot. However she does take forever to say something. Her dialogue is often inane, and her unnecessary descriptions slow the storyline unbearably. I am not a reader who requires a book to be plot driven, but Ms. Bowen's meanderings are excessive. One of the book's reviewers, V.S. Pritchett, writes, "Out of the plainest things - the drawing of a curtain - she can make something electric and urgent." I beg to disagree with Mr. Pritchett, but there is absolutely nothing electric, in this case, about a full page description of a woman drawing the curtains and looking out the window. It is downright tedious. After a long, rather innocuous conversation with her son, our heroine Stella Rodney, puts her cigarette out in the ashtray. After a pause, her son says, "I suppose you'll need the wastebasket." That was the conversation's high point. The story takes us to wartorn London, about midway through WWII. Stella Rodney, an attractive, intelligent woman in her 40s, is divorced with a son in the Army. Ms. Bowen portrays the tension and eeriness of a city, and its inhabitants, stressed by years of war and bombardment. Stella keeps running into a strange man, Harrison, who first introduces himself to her at her cousin's funeral. The meeting is not accidental. Apparently Harrison is working for one of England's secret services. He informs her that her lover, Robert, is an enemy spy. Harrison wants her to stop seeing Robert, and begin a relationship with him. He has fallen in love with her, somewhat quickly, and based on very little time together. I would call him obsessed, in a low-keyed manner. Stella's willingness to begin an affair with Harrison, is the price she will have to pay for protecting the man she loves from arrest. During the ensuing months, while she ponders and processes this information, she spends time with her son, goes with Robert to visit his family in their country estate, and makes a trip to Ireland to see about her son's inheritance. I suppose it is not the outcome of Stella's decision that is important, but her thoughts and feelings along the way. Again, objectively, I would have to say that for some this may be a good novel. I do enjoy and appreciate subtlity, but Ms. Bowen's writing is too subtle for my taste. JANA

I am reading the book after seeing the TV film.

I consider myself a reader of some discernment, but this book was among the most difficult to enjoy or to offer any reason to go beyond the 160 pages that I managed to muddle through. First, it seemed very dated and the pages and pages of descriptions of minutiae broken up by dialogue every ten pages or so, it seemed, were real barriers to getting an understanding of the book. Also, the characters were so bloodless and chilly and the tone so remote that it was impossible to identify with or like these characters. When I arrived at page 160 and Louie was mentioned, a scramble ensued to figure out who the heck she was. We read this for our book club. We have four English teachers in the group, several librarians and other educated people and to a person, we loathed this book. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone and can't see why it deserved renewed attention all these many years later.

A hard slog to get to an interesting story.

Bowen’s brilliant use of language is too self consciously clever, but she gives us convincing and moving insights into wartime London.

I am rather torn by this novel. As a whole, I did not like it. I did not like it at all. I think a fair thing to say to the prospective reader is that if you fancy the work of Virginia Woolf (with whom Bowen was acquainted), then you shall fancy this novel. If not, not. I, as it chances, fall into the latter category. The prose is tedious, self-consciously soi-disant stylistic and ridiculously worded in parts. - Do you prefer "authenticativeness" to authenticity, reader, "alimentation" to nourishment? If so, this book is for you. - And yet, there are some fine sections that would make marvellous prose poems or vignettes here, unfortunately they are drowned out by Bowen's attempting to be...whatever it is that she is attempting to be, Virginia Woolf's literary scion? Also, for me, the book was full of nostalgia for the days when this sort of thing could find a publisher. Yes, the characters and plot (fully threshed out in the other reviews) are drainingly dull and arid. Yes, one feels like wringing Ms. Bowen's neck for describing disembarkation from a train thusly, comparing new arrivals to those already on the platform: "Arrival of shades in Hades, the new dead scanned dubiously by the older, she thought that she could have thought;" Ms Bowen thinks that she could have thought far too many things in this book, especially, here, ones already thought of by T.S. Eliot in his Wasteland. But, as I say, this muddiness is set off by gems like this, describing two lovers together: "No, there is no such thing as being alone together. Daylight moves round the walls; night rings the changes of its intensity; everything is on its way to somewhere else - there is the presence of movement, however unheeding in their trance two might try to stay." Lovely, perfect! - But such passages are seldom encountered amidst all the absurdly worded cerebration (a la Woolf) that makes this novel neither a love story nor a spy story, much less a brilliant combination of the two. But one feels somehow that an A for effort is due here. The book is a failure that would simply not be allowed to fail in today's commercialised publishing world. So, three stars. For those not afraid of Virginia Woolf - She makes me shudder - you've found a kindred spirit!

戦時下のイギリスの様子が生き生きと鮮やかに描かれていて興味深かったです。同じ状況を扱った作品にグレアム グリーンの'The End of the Affair'がありますが、こちらも秀作です。

Very evocative and mysterious

The novel arrived in a most timely fashion and in perfect condition. It is quite wonderful that Amazon is able to provide access to the wealth of Elizabeth Bowen's literature. Thank you!

Interesting story but a bit confusing from time to time.

Il prodotto va bene, è arrivato in tempo.nessun problema tutto ok ok ok. + + + + + + +