- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; New Ed edition (27 May 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099287781
- ISBN-13: 978-0099287780
- Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.8 x 19.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,263,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In 1914 they had been eleven years old - Dicey, Mumbo and Sheikie. Nearly fifty years have gone by since they met at St Agatha's, a day scholl on the South Coast. One of them, Dicey, a beauty to whom time has so far done little, deliberately convenes the other two - Clare, a successful career woman, and Sheila, a glossy matron, cool and correct Can friendship be taken up where it left off? For there is peril in summoning up the violence and mystifications of childhood. Forces which has been latent in all three are brought uncomfortably near to the surface by this reunion. With its wit and its characteristically brilliant texture, the novel is ingeniously constructed. There is little explaination in THE LITTLE GIRLS, but they are many clues. Even inanimate objects can be important, and random sayings or seemingly trivial events may acquire, retrospectively, a strange significance.
From the Back Cover
In 1914 they had been eleven years old; three little girls at St Agatha's, a day school on the South Coast. Fifty years later, Dinah, beautiful as ever, advertises in the national newspapers to find the other two - Clare, now established with a successful business, and Sheila, a married woman, glossy, chic and correct.
In this brilliantly orchestrated novel, as subtle and compelling as a mystery story, Elizabeth Bowen asks whether friendship can be taken up where it has been left off. What are the revelations - and the dangers - in summoning up childhood?
'There is that recurring shiver of delight...for this story is poetic in its awareness, its stimulus, its beauty of writing; and as full of clues, hints and half-revealed secrets as any thriller' Scotsman
'Elizabeth Bowen's mastery of the shape and form and talk of the world around her combines with her miraculous psychological insight to give us moments of sudden vision' Angus Wilson
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Elizabeth Bowen tells the story of 3 little girls who were friends at school just before the Great War, being brought back together by one of their number around 40 years later. The story flits between the women and the girls they were. Her evocation of their time as children is wonderful, particualrly the shifting nature of their loyalties to each other.
Their story as adults is not quite as convincing, although this may be due to the fact that the style is quite dated.
There are some very funny scenes, and some quite moving ones. As a reader I had a constant feeling of missing something that was going to reveal the plot to me, and this feeling stayed with me to the end of the book. I had no great revelation, which left me feeling slightly unsatisfied. That isn't to say it isn't fun to conjecture.
Their story as adults is not quite as convincing, although this may be due to the fact that the style is quite dated.
There are some very funny scenes, and some quite moving ones. As a reader I had a constant feeling of missing something that was going to reveal the plot to me, and this feeling stayed with me to the end of the book. I had no great revelation, which left me feeling slightly unsatisfied. That isn't to say it isn't fun to conjecture.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
7 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Anti Nostolgic Reaquaintence
25 Sep 2006
Format:Paperback
Elizabeth Bowen became one of my favorite authors ever within the first chapter of the first book of hers that I read, (The House in Paris). Her text is acute and moving, it makes everyone alive and has a tangible respect of the subjectivity of people's existence.
The Little Girls, the fourth novel of hers I have read. I do not think I would have fallen as madly in love with her if it had been my first or second book of hers that I read. But it is still a good novel. Like most of Bowen' work plot is secondary to the way people read one another. In this case the three girls of the title, who are all grown up and in their sixties. They have not spoken to each other since their childhood effectively ended with the outbreak of the First World War. The girls put together a pagan sort of made up ritual in creating a time capsule to go along with their exotic nick-names, (Sheickie, Mumbo and Dicey). Then fifty years later they decide to search for it. But really it is about
After reflection the prose of this seems different than in her earlier novels. I read an article that stated in her later novels, especially Eva Trout, her prose tends to be more in the subjectivity of the characters. The Little Girls is definitely moving in that direction. The third person narrator is using the vocabulary of whom she is describing. This is especially obvious in the second section narrating the events that happened immediately before the outbreak of the war. It makes it less sympathetic than the prose of her earlier novels. I guess I just wanted to like it more than I did.
The Little Girls, the fourth novel of hers I have read. I do not think I would have fallen as madly in love with her if it had been my first or second book of hers that I read. But it is still a good novel. Like most of Bowen' work plot is secondary to the way people read one another. In this case the three girls of the title, who are all grown up and in their sixties. They have not spoken to each other since their childhood effectively ended with the outbreak of the First World War. The girls put together a pagan sort of made up ritual in creating a time capsule to go along with their exotic nick-names, (Sheickie, Mumbo and Dicey). Then fifty years later they decide to search for it. But really it is about
After reflection the prose of this seems different than in her earlier novels. I read an article that stated in her later novels, especially Eva Trout, her prose tends to be more in the subjectivity of the characters. The Little Girls is definitely moving in that direction. The third person narrator is using the vocabulary of whom she is describing. This is especially obvious in the second section narrating the events that happened immediately before the outbreak of the war. It makes it less sympathetic than the prose of her earlier novels. I guess I just wanted to like it more than I did.
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