Saturday, April 08, 2006
Despite my supposed wishes, I can’t seem to stop reading books about rich people and their fucked up lives. However, Elizabeth Bowen’s The House in Paris, from 1935, is actually a pretty good one. 1. Interesting characters. 2. Interesting structure. 3. Fine prose style.The first third of the book is set in the present (1935) as two unrelated children make their way to a house in Paris for two different reasons. The middle section of the book moves back in time, ten or so years, to tell the story of the conception of one of those children. The final third puts all the pieces together and moves towards the unknown future.
The plot unfolds like a mystery - slowly we learn more about everything - character’s relationships to each other, and the past’s relationship to the present - yet some feelings remain ambiguous. It’s that vaguely poetic undertone that kept me eating up pages. But it was also that slightly too literary, slightly too poofy(?) quality that kept me from falling completely for the book. I’m afraid it’s just another friendship when I was really hoping for a love affair.
