Reviews

The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen

boodrow's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

“How far do you think we’d get without conversations?”

Elizabeth Bowen really tested the limits of this question with The Heat of the Day. Conversation after rambling conversation, with any tension smothered by layers of unnecessary verbiage.

It’s an incredibly dull novel populated by unrelatable characters. It also probably didn’t help that the audiobook version is narrated in a very languid, monotonous style, which suits the novel’s themes but just drove home how sluggish it is. I gave it an extra half star for some pleasant descriptive prose. 

shoba's review against another edition

3.0

The novel begins in the middle of the London bombing raids of World War 2. A time when attachments underwent official scrutiny and information was often withheld. The protagonist, Stella Rodney, waits for Robert Harrison’s visit. Harrison, a man she dislikes, nonetheless insists on this meeting.

“She had asked him to go away and to stay away: that was the best he could do- she said, last time. What did she expect him to do? She expected him to do whatever he did do: she had no idea what he did, but surely he did do something?- why not get on with that? She had finished up with: “p’I’m sorry, but it just is that you don’t attract me. Why should we go on wasting each other’s  time?….There’s something about you, or isn’t something about you. I don’t know what.’”

Harrison claims Stella’s lover, Robert Kelway, was a German spy. Offered no evidence pertaining to the charges, Stella was unsure what to do next. 

“Stella pressed her thumb against the edge of the table to assure herself this was a moment she was living through- as in the moment before a faint she seemed to be looking at everything down a darkening telescope.”

Stella finds herself becoming attached to Harrison, while her affection for Kelway never wavers. As she becomes increasingly fearful, Stella remains unable to decide which man was telling her the truth.

“…and his abstention from touching her, always marked and careful, was becoming, in this constriction of the embrasure, powerful as a touch.”

deegee24's review against another edition

4.0

This is not as good as Bowen's earlier novel, The Death of the Heart, which is a masterpiece. But it has many of the same strengths: finely wrought prose, well developed characters (mostly), and probing explorations into complex relationships and historical dilemmas. It depicts WWII London as a place where love, family life, and daily routines are being torn apart by constant bombing and war rationing. News from the front is erratic and hard to place in the proper context. The main character, Stella Rodney, is approached by a man who hints that he is a cointerintelligence officer. He tells her that her lover, a man from an old, aristocratic Protestant Irish family, is spying for the Nazis. The stranger blackmails her: he wants her to dump her lover--without warning him that he's been found out--and become his. The novel unfolds as Stella searches for the truth, weighs what to do, and tries to decide how to reveal a dark secret of her own to her grown son, a soldier who has inherited his uncle's country estate. If you can imagine a cross between Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene, you might get an idea of what this book is like. I found that the subplot about a lonely working-class girl, whose husband is off fighting the war, was a little underdeveloped. And I would have liked Bowen to dig a little deeper into the ethics, politics, and sheer logistics of spying. But Chapter 5 contains one of the most extraordinary descriptions of living in a war zone that I've ever read. This is a book to savor.

arielamandah's review against another edition

3.0

I started this book, but moved to Idaho mid-read. I never quite got through it.

Another one of those books that I really -wanted- to like as I was reading it (her prose is really stunning--her descriptive paragraphs to die for!). The story didn't catch me, however.

Maybe I'll come back to it eventually.

natmoon's review against another edition

3.0

The novel opens with an awesome premise and beautiful writing, but really failed to hold my attention come halfway through the novel. I was expecting at least SOME sort of climax...

suebarsby's review against another edition

1.0

I tried, ok? I really wanted to like it. I persevered mainly because my husband bought it for me for Christmas. But how long does a scene need to be where a man can’t find his pyjamas and goes to sleep on his mother’s sofa? And it’s supposed to be a spy book. I’m running back to John Le Carre instead.

adeleighpenguin's review against another edition

3.0

I used to think it was some kind of cardinal sin to describe anything that might be considered “high literature” as boring, but considering myself at this point somewhat well-read... yeah, I didn’t love this one. It’s poetic, yes, but... dense. I can appreciate it, but I just honestly can’t say I enjoyed myself

ronanmcd's review against another edition

3.0

It seems to me that Bowen had extraordinary difficulty coming to the point. Her characters and her prose skirt what we feel we ought to be reading. Faced with a situation, or responding to a query, a character may resort to a blatant non-sequitur. A descriptive passage may begin at one point and emerge to action and some other, without linkage between.
Trained with very long paragraphs of supreme density, it makes for hard reading. Reading that, being honest, I have not found ultimately enjoyable.
-
As an espionage tale, it flat out doesn't work. It's not convincing. As a narrative, it feels gappy and driven in stops and starts. However, as a study of the interplay between characters it feels very much like Sean O'Casey. Which is ok.

ed_moore's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.25

Bowen’s ‘The Heat of the Day’ appeared to have a lot of potential: a book set in blitz era London surrounding espionage reflecting Bowen’s real affairs that she became engaged in during her experience of the Second World War.  It however did not meet this potential, as somehow nothing happened. The book was such a slog, many characters served absolutely no purpose and the one notable plot point was brushed over in about two pages. I have so little to say about this book as it was nothing but boring, after 330 pages I could hardly say much about the plot. Bowen is regarded as one of the great literate perspectives of the Second World War, but honestly don’t waste your time with her.

howattp's review against another edition

2.0

Another in a string of meh.
It's fine, but not compelling or thrilling.