Bowen, Elizabeth The Death of the Heart ISBN 13: 9780385720175

The Death of the Heart - Softcover

9780385720175: The Death of the Heart
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
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 of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London.There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal--and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
Five words of advice on reading Elizabeth Bowen: Resist the urge to skim. In The Death of the Heart, Bowen's writing rolls ever onward, accruing the sensations and ironies of conscious living till the final effect is massive. This is not prose for people who like their fiction with a cool, Calvin Klein-like minimalism. Bowen's people are keenly aware, and she seems to catalogue every sweaty moment, every betraying glance. The reader must stay right there with her, because hidden among lengthy descriptions of sea air and drawing-room politics are pithy asides worthy of great humorists: "Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends." Skimmers miss out.

The Death of the Heart is Bowen's most perfectly made book. Portia, an orphan, comes to live in London with her half-brother, Thomas, and his wife, Anna. A child of sin raised in a series of shabby French hotels, Portia is possessed of a kind of terrible innocence. Like Chance the Gardener in pigtails, she literally can't comprehend evil or unkind motives. Unfortunately for her, she falls in with Anna's friend Eddie, who seems to be made entirely of bad motives. Though the plot follows Portia's relationship with Eddie, the novel's real tension lies between Portia and Anna, as the girl comes to grief against the shoals of Anna's glittering, urbane cynicism. But the book transcends the theme of innocence corrupted. As in Graham Greene's The Quiet American, Bowen inverts the formula to show the destructive power of innocence itself:

Innocence so constantly finds itself in a false position that inwardly innocent people learn to be disingenuous.... Incurable strangers to the world, they never cease to exact a heroic happiness. Their singleness, their ruthlessness, their one continuous wish makes them bound to be cruel, and to suffer cruelty. The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet--and when they do, their victims lie strewn all around.
Bowen has a fine eye for such shadings of morality, but finer still is her understanding of the way humans bump up against the material world. Her writing on weather, both emotional and meteorological, compares with the best of Henry James: "One's first day by the sea, one's being feels salt, strong, resilient, and hollow--like a seaweed pod not giving under the heel."

Always a sensitive observer of the way we live, in her lesser books Bowen deals in mind games and then delivers trumped-up, bloody endings. In The Death of the Heart, she keeps all the action between her characters' ears, and comes up with one of the great midcentury psychological novels. --Claire Dederer

From the Back Cover:
Elizabeth Bowen is widely considered to be one of the greatest novelists of this century. While her novels masquerade as witty comedies of manners, set in the lavish country houses of the Anglo-Irish or in elegant London homes, they mine the depths of private tragedy with a subtle ferocity and psychological complexity reminiscent of Henry James.

The Death of the Heart, a story of adolescent love and the betrayal of innocence, is perhaps Bowen's best-known book. When sixteen-year-old Portia, recently orphaned, arrives in London and falls for an attractive cad -- a seemingly carefree young man who is as much an outsider in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of 1930s drawing rooms as she is -- their collision threatens to shatter the carefully built illusions of everyone around them. 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 sharp sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherAnchor
  • Publication date2000
  • ISBN 10 0385720173
  • ISBN 13 9780385720175
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages418
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780099276456: The Death of the Heart

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780099276456
Publisher: Vintage Books, 1998
Softcover

  • 9780394605043: The Death of the Heart

    Modern..., 1984
    Hardcover

  • 9780394421728: Death of the Heart

    Knopf, 1985
    Hardcover

  • 9780140183009: The Death of the Heart (Penguin Classics)

    Pengui..., 1991
    Softcover

  • 9780140016901: The Death of the Heart

    Pengui..., 1985
    Softcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Seller Image

Bowen, Elizabeth
Published by Anchor (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Soft Cover Quantity: 1
Seller:
booksXpress
(Bayonne, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780385720175

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 14.08
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Bowen, Elizabeth
Published by Anchor (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Softcover Quantity: 5
Seller:
GreatBookPrices
(Columbia, MD, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 462193-n

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 12.53
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 2.64
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

BOWEN, ELIZABETH
Published by Penguin Random House (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
INDOO
(Avenel, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 0385720173

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 11.35
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Elizabeth Bowen
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Grand Eagle Retail
(Wilmington, DE, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. 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 of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London.There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal--and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen offers the piercing story of innocence betrayed at a 1930s British seaside resort. "One of the finest, one of the deepest . . . of contemporary English novels."--"Saturday Review." Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780385720175

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 19.49
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Elizabeth Bowen
Published by Random House (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Softcover Quantity: 3
Seller:
Books Puddle
(New York, NY, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. pp. 432. Seller Inventory # 26747465

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 17.07
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bowen, Elizabeth
Published by Anchor (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New paperback Quantity: 3
Seller:
Textbooks_Source
(Columbia, MO, U.S.A.)

Book Description paperback. Condition: New. (7th). Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes). Seller Inventory # 000462898N

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 19.18
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bowen, Elizabeth
Published by Anchor (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
LibraryMercantile
(Humble, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # newMercantile_0385720173

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 25.43
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bowen, Elizabeth
Published by Anchor (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0385720173

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 25.10
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bowen, Elizabeth
Published by Anchor (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0385720173

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 25.86
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bowen, Elizabeth
Published by Anchor (2000)
ISBN 10: 0385720173 ISBN 13: 9780385720175
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
GF Books, Inc.
(Hawthorne, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 0385720173-2-1

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 32.29
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book