Publication
Penguin Audio (2021)
Original publication date
1948
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Description
Elizabeth Bowen recreates the tense and dangerous atmosphere of London during the bombing raids of World War II. Many people have fled the city, and those who stayed behind find themselves thrown together in an odd intimacy born of crisis. Stella Rodney is one of those who chose to stay. But for her, the sense of impending catastrophe becomes acutely personal when she discovers that her lover, Robert, is suspected of selling secrets to the enemy, and that the man who is following him wants Stella herself as the price of his silence. Caught between these two men, not sure whom to believe, Stella finds her world crumbling as she learns how little we can truly know of those around us.
User reviews
LibraryThing member wunderkind
Elizabeth Bowen is a very good writer with a propensity for writing about unlikable characters. There are some passages in "The Heat of the Day" that get at the heart of an experience the way that Woolf and Proust do, allowing you to see beauty in what seems to be a common occurrence. Then there
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are others, usually during dialogue, where Bowen's ethereal style seems to get away from her, and it's almost like she's just writing to herself. Of course, the plot here is negligible: my copy has a blurb on the cover saying it's like "a Graham Greene thriller projected through the sensibility of Virginia Woolf", but it's definitely more Woolf than Greene, with all of the "thrills" coming from the uncertainty inherent in human relationships. Overall, it's a good book with some great bits sprinkled throughout, but it was just slightly off the mark somehow. This is the second book by Bowen I've read and I've had mixed feelings about both, but there's enough potential greatness in her writing to make me want to keep reading her. Show Less
LibraryThing member otterley
The Heat of the Day is an often infuriating, but intriguing book. Set in the war, and hedged round by betrayals and ambiguities, it tells of many things in ellipsis - betrayal, inheritance, madness, obsession, infidelity, to name a few. The world of the central character, Stella, is shifting and
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temporary (she inhabits a series of rented apartments in the better part of town); she works among secrets. Her lover, Robert, reacts to a monstrous and consuming family by wishing destruction on his world, while her son slowly gets to grips with the unexpected legacy of a house and an estate, a new and apparently solid life to start after the war. Other characters surround them, reacting differently to a world where people disappear, where the normal rules don't apply any more and morality is negotiated, rather than absolute. This is, like its subject, an unsettling book. Bowen's prose is not easy, often minutely descriptive, circular and repetitive; her narrative moves in tiny steps and giant leaps, apparently at random. Not easy, but rewarding. Show Less
LibraryThing member stillatim
One of the best books I've read this year, hands down. It's beautifully structured, and gorgeously written- not an easy read by any means, but not quite a Jamesian labyrinth either. I can't really describe it, but the book is wise, and every other good adjective you can think of. "There was nobody
This is probably the perfect antidote to all the flag-waving and hurrahing and so on that surrounds the second world war, and maybe even our own petty little political squabbles.
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to admire: there *was* no alternative. No unextinguished watch-light remained, after all, burning in any window, however far away. In hopes of what, then, was one led on, led on? How long, looking back on it, it had lasted - that dogged, timid, unfaithfully-followed hope!" This is probably the perfect antidote to all the flag-waving and hurrahing and so on that surrounds the second world war, and maybe even our own petty little political squabbles.
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LibraryThing member dbsovereign
One of those books that is so beautifully written that even though it's a bit on the depressing side, it still uplifts. Poignant tale of guilt/betrayal and second love.
LibraryThing member mahallett
I REALLY FOUND THIS BORING.
LibraryThing member japaul22
This is the third novel I've read by [[Elizabeth Bowen]], and she is a hit or miss author for me. It took me a while to get into [The Heat of the Day]. Bowen writes densely. It's easy to miss a big plot point in a long descriptive passage, so you have to read closely.
This book was published in
Once I got past the opening scenes and got my bearings, the plot carried the book along for me. The setting is also strong. However, sometimes I felt like Bowen was over-writing the material and putting the reader too far removed from the characters. The book is a bit meandering, but in the end I'm glad I read it.
This book was published in
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1948, but takes place in 1942 London. I wondered when she actually wrote the novel. It has an immediacy regarding WWII that is impactful. The main character is Stella, who is in a relationship with a man named Robert. In the opening scenes, a stranger named Harrison approaches her and tells her that Robert is a spy. As the book unfolds, Stella has to decide who to believe and whether or not she even wants to know. The parallel story involves her adult son, Roderick, who is in the Army. He inherits an Irish estate from his father's family, who Stella had divorced early in their marriage. This inheritance brings up the past and secrets are revealed. There are two other side plots - one involving Robert's family and one involving a young woman, Louie, who meets Harrison in the opening scene. I never did understand what Louie's story was meant to add to the book. Once I got past the opening scenes and got my bearings, the plot carried the book along for me. The setting is also strong. However, sometimes I felt like Bowen was over-writing the material and putting the reader too far removed from the characters. The book is a bit meandering, but in the end I'm glad I read it.
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LibraryThing member wandering_star
A few months ago I read The Last September, by the same author, and was blown away - I'd barely heard of her before, and I found myself wondering why I ever read any books that were less good.
The Heat Of The Day, however, was more of a slow burner for me. Partly this is because less happens -
That said, there were some things I really liked about the book - for example, the way the first few chapters established the sense that because of the war, everyone had lost their roots - their traditions - and even their selves. By the end of the book I had decided that the apparent lack of structure might be deliberate - to convey the lack of grounding in people's lives during the war.
The Heat Of The Day, however, was more of a slow burner for me. Partly this is because less happens -
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partly because the structure of the narrative is harder to figure out - and partly because the moral and emotional issues in the book are more dated. (One of the things which made The Last September so amazing for me was the psychological acuity about a young woman awkwardly coming of age - but it's a lot harder for me to judge whether this book is an accurate portrayal of what it feels like when you are told your lover is a spy.)That said, there were some things I really liked about the book - for example, the way the first few chapters established the sense that because of the war, everyone had lost their roots - their traditions - and even their selves. By the end of the book I had decided that the apparent lack of structure might be deliberate - to convey the lack of grounding in people's lives during the war.
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LibraryThing member pnorman4345
The book is beautifully written, but ultimately puzzling. The effort to deal only with the ebb and flow of instantaneous pieces of emotion and leave out underlying values, ideas makes decisions and the love which are the central part of the book unbelievable.
LibraryThing member pgmcc
This novel follows the lives of two women and two men living in London during the war. The characters are people who have not been evacuated and they remain in the city for work, or lack of anywhere else to live. The main character, Stella, is a widow who has a son in the army. She is seeing
“The Heat of the Day” gives the reader a taste of what it was like for ordinary people living in blitz-torn London. The people remaining in the city are portrayed as having a high level of comradery in which everybody was friends but they never got too close because they knew their friend of tonight might not be around tomorrow after the nighttime air-raids.
There is a lot of internal consideration of feelings and convoluted thinking about that the other person meant by their words or actions, or even lack of words.
The story points of view are those of Stella and Louie, the main female characters. Knowing Elizabeth Bowen’s background I can see she identified with Stella. The scenes in which Stella visits an inherited stately home in Ireland are obviously informed by Bowen’s own family seat, Bowen’s Court, in Farahy, County Cork, which she visited frequently as a child and which she inherited in 1930.
Louie is a rather two dimensional character. She is portrayed as not having a lot of wit. I think her character suffers from Bowen’s attempting to write a working class character from a rather elite status.
Strong points in this book include the explanation, through Louie’s reading and interpretation of newspapers, of how the news media is used to manipulate the thoughts of the masses, especially at a time of national emergency. This element is reminiscent of current times with multimedia channels being used to influence political thought and to lead the masses by the nose. I was amazed at how sharp this element was.
I shan’t discuss the plot as the environment in which it takes place, and the thoughts and emotions of the people involved, are more important in this book than who did what and when.
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Robert, a wounded Dunkirk evacuee who is working in The War Office. Harrison (whose first name we do not learn until near the end of the book) is a strange person who likes to imply that he is somehow involved in counter-espionage. Louie is a factory worker whose husband is off fighting in the war and she finds herself bored and wandering London wondering what to do and what to think. Her character is easily led and rather flighty.“The Heat of the Day” gives the reader a taste of what it was like for ordinary people living in blitz-torn London. The people remaining in the city are portrayed as having a high level of comradery in which everybody was friends but they never got too close because they knew their friend of tonight might not be around tomorrow after the nighttime air-raids.
There is a lot of internal consideration of feelings and convoluted thinking about that the other person meant by their words or actions, or even lack of words.
The story points of view are those of Stella and Louie, the main female characters. Knowing Elizabeth Bowen’s background I can see she identified with Stella. The scenes in which Stella visits an inherited stately home in Ireland are obviously informed by Bowen’s own family seat, Bowen’s Court, in Farahy, County Cork, which she visited frequently as a child and which she inherited in 1930.
Louie is a rather two dimensional character. She is portrayed as not having a lot of wit. I think her character suffers from Bowen’s attempting to write a working class character from a rather elite status.
Strong points in this book include the explanation, through Louie’s reading and interpretation of newspapers, of how the news media is used to manipulate the thoughts of the masses, especially at a time of national emergency. This element is reminiscent of current times with multimedia channels being used to influence political thought and to lead the masses by the nose. I was amazed at how sharp this element was.
I shan’t discuss the plot as the environment in which it takes place, and the thoughts and emotions of the people involved, are more important in this book than who did what and when.
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LibraryThing member leslie.98
This is the 3rd or 4th book by Elizabeth Bowen that I have read. This book reminded me a lot of the first book of hers that I read, "The Last September", in that both books had the bones of a plot that I thought would be interesting but ended up boring me. These books are what I guess are now
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called character-driven (rather than plot-driven) which meant that I was continually frrustrated by the fact that NOTHING WAS HAPPENING. Because of the style of the writing, even when things did happen it was difficult to notice due to all the musing by the characters on their thoughts and feelings... Oh well, tastes differ and I am sure that many people will love this book but sadly I was not one of them. Show Less
LibraryThing member lschiff
Couldn't read more than about 10 pages of this. Some of the most atrocious writing I've ever read in my life.
LibraryThing member saschenka
Bowen is a gifted writer but drowns in her own subterranean world. Published in 1948, the style leans very heavily on description, a choice that apparently left less time for showing deeper insight into characters. For a novel to be character driven, the reader must be shown certainly not all, but
The weakest part of the book is the character of Robert, the lover of the protagonist Stella: there was simply not enough development to allow him to be anything more than a vague representative of disenchantment, of a desperate desire for Something Else. His reveal is anticlimactic at best, an afterthought at worst. It isn’t so much that a reader may not like any of the characters (I have never understood why that should be an issue) it’s that it would be hard to care one way or another about what happens to them.
This book is neither a ‘thriller’ not anything approaching Woolf or Graham Greene, despite the front cover blurb. Despite some excellent passages, the concept of the book outshines its execution. There is enough promise in the book to encourage reading Bowen’s other work.
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enough, of not just the character’s motivations but any transformations. The book does a fairly good job of capturing a point in time, during WW11 London, where people of all walks of life felt uprooted and vulnerable, as the characters each reach out in their own way, fumbling blindly in the dark, for some kind of connection to others, no matter how desultory or unfulfilling. People are strange, families are annoying, world events intrude on lives, everyone has a backstory that for the most part remains hidden: this commonplace isn’t enough to warrant a novel. The weakest part of the book is the character of Robert, the lover of the protagonist Stella: there was simply not enough development to allow him to be anything more than a vague representative of disenchantment, of a desperate desire for Something Else. His reveal is anticlimactic at best, an afterthought at worst. It isn’t so much that a reader may not like any of the characters (I have never understood why that should be an issue) it’s that it would be hard to care one way or another about what happens to them.
This book is neither a ‘thriller’ not anything approaching Woolf or Graham Greene, despite the front cover blurb. Despite some excellent passages, the concept of the book outshines its execution. There is enough promise in the book to encourage reading Bowen’s other work.
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Language
Original language
English
Other editions
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen (Paperback)