To the North (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

TO THE NORTH was one of the most praised of Elizabeth Bowen's novels during her lifetime, but it is less well known today than her other mature works THE DEATH OF THE HEART or THE HOUSE IN PARIS, in part because it is perhaps a more difficult read than either of those two of her masterworks. As with all of Bowen's novels, it is primarily concerned with what Bowen calls in THE DEATH OF THE HEART "the edited life," the life of the upper middle class who refuse to speak of how they truly feel or what they truly want with one another. In TO THE NORTH, Bowen herself emphasizes this sense of preterition by herself refusing to tell her readers what her characters are feeling; since they themselves often speak around what they want or say the opposite, we must intuit from the whole of their actions what they truly mean. Hers is a world, she suggests, where all readers are naive interpreters, like the innocent teenager Pauline in this novel (one of Bowen's many Jamesian ingenues) who rarely understands how the adults around her are always at cross-purposes with her and one another; the best readings we can do then are always re-readings.

The glittering social world of this novel, coupled with its stylistic flourishes and sometimes absurd characters make the novel at times seem almost as akin to Firbank or to Waugh as to Henry James, Bowen's usual point of comparison; certainly one of its heroines, Cecilia, could easily stand among Waugh's coterie of Bright Young Things. Cecilia lives in St. John's Wood with her dead husband's sister Emmeline; although the women rarely spend time with one another, they come to love each other in ways they cannot even articulate. Cecilia is courted by Julian, Pauline's uncle, while the more placid and unworldly Emmeline embarks on a secret affair with Markie, a young rotter who has also flirted with Cecilia; their entanglements play out statically in the sparkling if inhuman comic world of weekend visits to country houses and crowded London cocktail parties. But in her brief experiences of travel and speed--in an airplane or in a car--Emmeline finds her heart and her secret affair quickening. These episodes, which provide Bowen with her most virtuoso episodes in the novel, suggest how the unavoidable encounter modernity has forever changed the traditional world of the novel of manners in the twentieth century, and hurl Bowen's novel towards its unforgettable violent conclusion. It's a tough novel, but it is more than worth the effort.

I have praised the beautiful Anchor editions of Elizabeth Bowen before (for instance, THE HOUSE IN PARIS or her masterpiece THE DEATH OF THE HEART), and this one, with its luscious portrait of a society beauty on the cover, is no exception. But back-cover blurbs can be deceiving. For instance: "A young woman's secret love affair leads to a violent and tragic act in one of Elizabeth Bowen's most acclaimed novels." True enough as far as it goes, but it totally hides the fact that, for most of its length, TO THE NORTH (1932) plays as a social comedy in the manner of Jane Austen. Consider this sentence: "The other guests for the week-end were a young married couple, the Blighs, who might, Lady Waters was certain, still save their marriage if they could get right away from people and talk things out, and a young man called Farquharson who had just broken off his engagement on Lady Waters' advice." How deliciously the added detail about Farquharson casts doubt on Lady Waters' view of the poor Blighs! Contrast the impression of Lady Waters' husband, virtually channeling the whole line of not-quite-in-touch Austen father-figures: "Those young Blighs seem devoted, never apart; it's quite pretty to see them." Read slowly enough to savor, this is a very funny book.

Bowen's subjects, like Austen's, are typically young women in adolescence or early adulthood. But, as Henry James did in THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, she takes them out of their domestic surroundings and thrusts them into modern society. Bowen gives us two young ladies: a young widow, Cecilia Summers, and her sister-in-law Emmeline, an independent businesswoman who runs a travel bureau (travel by train, air, or auto plays a significant part in the novel). Although close friends, the two are strongly contrasted: Cecilia stylish, but emotionally exhausted and barely able to cope with practical matters; Emmeline supremely competent, but shy and emotionally naive. For most of the book, very little happens, but we can deduce a great deal, in Jamesian fashion, by reading in between the lines of what does. That "affair," for instance, is implied only through hints. By the end of her career, as in THE HEAT OF THE DAY (1949), Bowen would describe sexual relationships unambiguously if not in detail, but in this relatively early novel (1932) she is almost as reticent as James himself. In both books, she is less interested in the facts of a relationship than its ultimate effects.

Bowen does a lot by indirect means. The book is full of landscape descriptions, evocative in themselves, and even more so as a reflection of character. A man in a bad mood walks in a suburban park: "Then someone's wife opened a cold piano: she tinkled, she tippetted, she struck false chords and tried them again. God knows what she thought she was doing. The notes fell on his nerves like the drops of condensed mist all round on the clammy beech-branches." Contrast his optimistic lover: "The glades of St. John's Wood were still at their brief summer: walls gleamed through thickets, red may was clotted and crimson, laburnums showered the pavements, smoke had not yet tarnished a leaf. The heights of this evening had an airy superurbanity: one heard the ping of tennis-balls, a man wheeled a barrow of pink geraniums, someone was practising the violin, sounds and late sunshine sifted through the fresh trees."

This feeling for ambience is essential to the bookend chapters that frame TO THE NORTH and give the book its title -- two journeys, both at night: a train trip from Milan to Calais in the rain, and a car drive northwards out of London. They balance one another with a symmetry that holds the entire novel between them, brilliantly contrasting the two central women, and answering the earlier comedy with seriousness. The novel may have flaws -- it flags about half-way through, and the men are less well-realized than the women -- but it remains a penetrating study of the interwar period when many women were looking to define themselves other than through traditional society expectations. And when Bowen pulls everything together in the last fifty pages, the result is quite simply magnificent.

Every time I read Bowen I feel I am receiving an education on the ways of the human heart, and on human motives. It is for that reason that I often recommend her work. I think that if more people read her, there would be more understanding and less ignorance in human relations. I also love her finely wrought prose. Just read this passage and see for yourself.

"It is too bad," said Lady Waters, crossing the hall that night with her little file of visitors on their way upstairs to bed, "that Julian Tower had to go back so soon."

"Indeed, yes," said Pauline politely.

Cecilia said nothing: winding a wrap round her shoulders she stepped out into the porch. Above, the dark sky changed a little; something stirring behind the clouds shed a faint line of silver about the lime-tree. Cecilia looked up: while not a drop fell in the heavy darkness the clouds were in conflict, disturbed; light ran between like a messenger. Somewhere, the moon was rising. Somewhere, clear of earth's shadow, the radiant full moon received the whole smile of the sun. Clouds hid from the earth at this bridal moment her lovely neighbour, while to the clouds alone was communicated her ecstasy...Clouds closed in; the moon did not appear; darkness spread over the skies again; only the lime and wet path silver for less than a moment had known the moon's rising. The tree and path faded; cloudbound while that tide of light swept the heavens earth less than suspected the moon's perfection and ardour.

Cecilia sighed. "It's horribly dark," said Marcelle, throwing a match away into the darkness.

"That was nearly the moon," cried Pauline.

"Yes, it's there," said Cecilia, putting a hand out as though she expected the moon to fall into it.

Gathering up her furs, Lady Waters remarked: "It's a pity: we should have had a full moon."

Calling them all in, she shut the hall-door firmly.

"Perhaps," said Cecilia, "there is a moon in Paris."

To The North has many moments of delicate irony, masterful characterization and setting. Bowen's characters are quite the most real and compelling I have read. She has been compared to Jane Austen, and, at the risk of offending Austen fans, I'll say that I find Bowen was more interesting because she was more learned and worldly than Jane Austen. Imagine for a moment that Jane Austen had been born into the aristocratic class, and how that would have influenced and benefited her development as an author by granting her a greater social sphere, more congress with other intellectuals, more money, etc., and you would have an author much like Bowen.