One of my main reasons for reading is... Fuck, I was gonna write "understanding" but that's not really it. (For one thing, I don't.) I was hooked on Elizabeth Bowen from the start because she puts into words the expressions I only get in visuals (and sometimes I gotta try them on myself to see what they feel like. I'm a social retard. I've never mastered the "default expression"). Sinister shadows, meanings in protracted sighs, shit that goes over your head but you can still sense it was probably pretty fucking bitchy (Mean Girls the film is factual events). Emotions as events and feeling the marks. Bowen is probably not an author for those who don't watch other people for cues. She's the perfect author for shy people, I think, or analysers.Not "comedy of manners" shit. Back in the day, when I checked out all Bowen's works from the public library, they ALL had "comedy of manners" on the back cover. That used to be my "Hell no!" indicator. It's lucky I read The Last September first or I'd have missed out. This isn't Seinfeld. ("Where are all the trout? What is the deal!?") Yeah, I guess her books could be taken that way. Well, not comedy. It's like those unspoken rules, how to behave. That's bullshit. I'd go back over my mind what I could possibly have done to avoid this, that and the other and would come up with "Absolutely nothing" (without total avoidance. That's not a bad idea...). It's really about cruelty and excuses for cruelty. Manners are a lie. There isn't a set of rules that gets you out of shit. Don Draper might be on to something about the 40% who pretend to see things the same way, though. Navigating ones way through the land sharks and sea sharks is a more personal thing than that. I loved Bowen's writing because it was those clues that I looked for in life, in words and unspoken words. The tight rope of personal interactions. Knowing when to cut and run when you seemed to have missed the day everybody else was handed the rules. I'm interested in learning how the hell you cultivate some way of understanding what the hell people are talking about, anyway. Joanna Newsom sang "And I have read the write book to interpret your look". That was great. That's what I'm trying to do, I guess.Eva Trout was not my favorite (that is The Death of the Heart, without reservations). I didn't feel the whole picture. Ultimately the senses I got in the moment were only fleeting. This didn't go down in my heart as a favorite. My twin didn't like it that much. I might be remembering this wrong (sorry, Lauren!) that she found Eva to be annoying. I didn't. She was out of place. I could relate, if I'm different. I like it, I remember thinking different times "Man, Bowen is a genius". She got the differentness, and out of sorts, and rubbing the wrong ways. The ending of "Death" knocked my socks off. Doing "the right thing" (I want that). I have no idea whatsoever what that would be. I don't even know what I'd do once I was more equipped. It probably feel nice to be more at ease. I want to feel more like not being the fish (trout!) out of water more often. Bowen is pretty awesome for that. I'm sorry that I haven't written more about Eva Trout itself. I'm struggling to remember a book I read nearly ten years ago, and I'm struggling to express feelings I didn't entirely understand the first time around. I can't give examples because I do not own my copy. (Wait, this book only has two reviews anyway. Probably no one cares. It's forgotten.) I don't know if I was being an idiot and felt unfulfilled because of the story itself. Probably that (which one? What? Um... Never mind). I think I lost that connection I was riding. Eva's life wasn't one I'd wanna go the distance for. Most people aren't, though. It's weird. I like that I'll most likely only know everyone I know for a short while, and it is also depressing. I don't think I was depressed to leave Eva. That's probably why I remember this as a four star reading experience.I don't really read to understand all that much. I read in hopes I'll find someone I wanna go the distance with. D'oh! Changing Scenes. If I were a tricked up reviewer writing for a glossy publication, I'd give this some kind of a "Changing scenes" title. Maybe with a photo spread of a trout swimming.So I'm looking on amazon (product placement alert!) and I find this cd by artist Eva Trout. Real name? Or is this a classic rock attempt in the vein of Steppenwolf, Uriah Heep, Titus Groan, etc? There are samples but I'm not gonna listen to them because this is from the '90s. I don't feel like being reminded of the '90s.
This novel centers around a young orphaned heiress, Eva Trout, with a problematic family life behind her – vanished mother, gay father. She is disconnected from everyone around her, and all the other major characters seem disconnected too. They include a former teacher, a guardian, and the deaf-mute boy that Eva adopts. During the second half of the book, when Eva falls in love, she is somewhat more accessible. The writing is by turns irritating and brilliant. The plot is vague, and full of odd turns. The dialogue tends towards the enigmatic, although it’s clear that there are lots of subtle yearnings and rejections going on beneath. There are pages of rather dull letters between the characters, which could have been omitted entirely. Where Bowen excels, though, is in description. Here are some quotes that will illustrate Bowen’s gift with language: “Lancing its way through Paris, the steel-bright Seine magnetized leaners over its parapets.” “Enticing with coffee, the morning was pearly with promise of noon heat.” “Day, a dying yellow suffusion, was at its last. Some new element entered Eva’s silence.”“Such was the shadowlessness of the church that it became the more onerous to brings sins here, even to lay them down.”
What do You think about Eva Trout (2003)?
I honestly have no idea what to make of this book. Bowen's writing is beautiful, but she's produced a novel with a completely enigmatic central character, in which anything interesting or exciting happens before or after the action she describes. Weird, sullen, awkward Eva drifts about confounding the people she encounters. She adopts, or buys, or something a little boy in America, then returns to England to drift around some more. She has some sort of malign influence on the people she encounters, including her bitchy financial guardian; a waspish, discontented schoolteacher and her hapless husband; and the son of the local vicar. But it's hard to see how, because she doesn't DO anything. At any rate, one of these people ends up destroying her, quite abruptly, the end.I have a feeling that the book worked on some entirely different level that I didn't grasp at all.
—Cathy
This the last of Bowen's books, set partly in 1959 and resuming in 1967. The story is not too period-specific but there is an implication that the protagonist, a very wealthy single woman in her 20s, had to go from the UK to America to adopt a child via some black market channels because that was the only way she could do so - not something I had previously thought about.The titular Eva Trout is considerably insulated from the consequences of her own eccentricities by her inherited wealth. The cast of supporting characters is entertaining if not always entirely believable: the vicar with hay fever, his son the Cambridge student who always says "one" rather than "I" in an increasingly convoluted way, the wealthy epicurean homosexual and so on.The unexpected violent incident which ends the book, with little obvious foreshadowing, may or may not be typical of Bowen. The only other book of hers I've read, The Heat of the Day, has something sort of comparable - I wonder whether she influenced Iris Murdoch's tendency to do the same?
—Bob
Being my first Elizabeth Bowen read I have nothing to compare it with. I would like to read more of the author’s work before taking a critical stand. Some of my notes were as follows:… the novel is becoming a bit bizarre and rather hard to understand - chapter 12… the novel is once again flowing and I am less confused – part 2, chapter 1… in this novel dysfunction runs rampant. The characters, almost all the characters do not take responsibility for their actions. It seems throughout the story it becomes easier to blame Eva.…the last chapter is seventy-five pages long – the novel seems strangely put together and I wonder if it is on purpose? Sometimes the book seems written out of order. Ups and downs, unexpected turns and twists appear in the wrong places.The story is of Eva Trout finding her way to some sense of order in her ever crumbling life. Order and affection would be enough as sadly she gave up on love a long time ago. Through the chapters I felt she had to climb over the characters for a brief moment of fresh air – always distancing herself from her small circle of incapable care givers.‘Eric kisses Eva’ – I had suspected something was going on there. I wanted to give Eric the benefit of the doubt. This awful man, Eric, tells Eva, ‘You are mine’. Eva states she was never anyone’s with a reply – ‘You were your father’s’. And Eva says, ‘no, only Constantine's’ which I also found strange.♥ favorite quote – Izzy thinking aloud‘I am soiled by living more than a thousand lives, I have lived through books. I have lived internally.’In conclusion it would appear I am rather critical of this novel. I would rather read more of the author’s work and who she was as I am very intrigued. I also came across a biography by Victoria Glendinning about the Elizabeth Bowen’s life.
—Patricia Stewart
