Bazaar and Other Stories
Jun 2008 · Edinburgh University Press
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384
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About this ebook
A prolific writer of short stories, Elizabeth Bowen claimed towards the end of her life that "a story deals in the not-yet-thought-of but always possible." Covering a range of situations - broken engagements, encounters with ghosts, brushes with crime - these stories demonstrate the virtuosity of technique that characterizes all of Bowen''s writing. "The Lost Hope" ranks with the best of her war stories. Shattering the lives of soldiers and civilians alike, the war cancels the promise shown by the generation that came of age in the 1940s. Yet the war also clears a path to the future, as happens in "Comfort and Joy" and "The Last Bus." Bowen''s characters live in the grip of intense circumstances. They respond ardently or ironically to their dilemmas, and sometimes both at once, as does sulky, big-limbed Doris Simonez in "Flowers Will Do." If some of the children in these stories are too wise for their age, like the punctual protagonist of "The Unromantic Princess," adults occasionally behave with no insight at all into their actions. Humour in these tales ranges from the sardonic to the light-hearted. In the title story, "The Bazaar," Captain Winch begs everyone for pins and ends up stealing some. Lady Hottenham gives an impromptu little speech that drifts agonizingly into cliché. The fairy tales, fables, and social dramas in this volume were never gathered together during Bowen''s lifetime; a few exist only in unfinished draft. With this collection, Bowen, gifted with keen social observation, justifies her place in the company of D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.Key Features:*Brings together for the first time Bowen''s uncollected short stories*Demonstrates the diversity of Bowen''s short fiction across her writing career*The stories cover familiar Bowen themes of marriage, travel, estrangement, disappointment and disinheritance*Completes the picture of Bowen as a compelling writing of the short story
A prolific writer of short stories, Elizabeth Bowen claimed towards the end of her life that "a story deals in the not-yet-thought-of but always possible." Covering a range of situations - broken engagements, encounters with ghosts, brushes with crime - these stories demonstrate the virtuosity of...
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About the author
Elizabeth Bowen, distinguished Anglo-Irish novelist, was born in Dublin in 1899, traveled extensively, lived in London, and inherited the family estate-Bowen's Court, in County Cork. Her account of the house, Bowen's Court (1942), with a detailed fictionalized history of the family in Ireland through three centuries, has charm, warmth, and insight. Seven Winters is a fragment of autobiography published in England in 1942. The "Afterthoughts" of the original edition are critical essays in which she discusses and analyzes, among others, such literary figures as Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, Katherine Mansfield, Anthony Trollope, and Eudora Welty. Bowen's stories, mostly about people of the British upper middle class, portray relationships that are never simple, except, perhaps, on the surface. Her concern with time and memory is a major theme. Beautifully and delicately written, her stories, with their oblique psychological revelations, are symbolic, subtle, and terrifying. A Time in Rome (1960) is her brilliant evocation of that city and its layered past. In 1948, Bowen was made a Commander of the British Empire. Bowen died in 1973.
Elizabeth Bowen, distinguished Anglo-Irish novelist, was born in Dublin in 1899, traveled extensively, lived in London, and inherited the family estate-Bowen's Court, in County Cork. Her account of the house, Bowen's Court (1942), with a detailed fictionalized history of the family in Ireland thr...
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