The Death of the Heart (1938)

Book #1, [The Death of the Heart] by Elizabeth Bowen

Portia Quayne, orphaned at sixteen by the death of her mother, comes to live with her half-brother, Thomas, and his wife, Anna. Thomas becomes Portia’s guardian at the request of their father through a letter he penned at his death in hopes of uniting his children and the ragged pieces of his life, torn between the two very different women he loved. To this point in her young life, Portia has lived an unsettled life, traveling and living in European hotels with her mother. Thomas and Anna’s home has all of the appearance of a settled and loving environment for the girl to come of age. But Portia soon unearths Anna’s bitter jealously and Thomas’ hopeless discontent.

The heart of the novel’s title has many facets. Portia, given her sheltered and unconnected young life, has a pure and uncomplicated perspective on life. She takes people at their word, expecting they mean what they say and act accordingly. Her education at the hands of Anna, who envies her youth and beauty, and at the hands of Eddie, who is only capable of playing at love, slowly kills her innocence. The heart of Bowen’s novel is also Thomas and Anna’s marriage, which is daily dying of selfishness and anger. And Bowen also appears to be chronicling the death of the British heart in the shifting of morals and manners after the end of World War I.

Bowen is a smooth author, easily able to shift between poetic and colorful language to spare story-telling. But don’t expect an elaborately styled plot because Bowen is focused primarily on the emotions and motives of the characters.

Bottom Line: A novel about the death of innocence and the death of a moral code in Britain.
4 bones!!!!! ( )

I had this book on my TBR shelf for nearly 2 years. I couldn't part with it without reading it, but I never claimed it for a weekend jaunt. Instead, I decided to listen to it on audio. It was amazing!!!! The writing is fantastically detailed and the narrator brought the characters to life. I appreciated each perfect sentence uttered iin a British accent.

My heart broke over and over for Portia. Such a "sweet kid" as she was affectionately and derisively known by others. She was doing her best to make her way in an unfamiliar world, hoping for a semblance of a family. Instead, she too soon learns the reality of the falesness of adults and the limits of love. ( )

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/recent-reads-the-death-o... ( )

This is a novel I know I read a very long time ago. No doubt though, it was when I was too young to appreciate Elizabeth Bowen’s writing. She is something of an acquired taste I suppose; I know some people consider her to be difficult.
Elizabeth Bowen is absolutely brilliant at completely capturing the world that she is writing about. Emotionally cold upper class people in a large, virtually empty London house. Laced with secrets and adolescent awkwardness, the bitterness of teenage betrayal, The Death of the Heart is an exquisitely written novel. When I look back over this novel, I think of fur coats and London fog, tea by the fire, the sudden ringing of telephones and the desolate sound of heels on an empty hall floor.
Having recently lost her mother, Portia is just sixteen when she comes to stay with her much older half-brother Thomas and his wife the distant cold Anna. Anna takes a dislike to her; Thomas though is embarrassed by Portia, who was the result of an affair between his father and Portia’s mother. Neither Thomas or Anna have any idea how to deal with Portia, she is in a sense left to her own devices, and develops a much better relationship with the maid than with either of them. Eddie, a younger friend of Anna’s is selfish, shallow and often cruel. He enjoys toying with the innocent Portia, caring nothing for the consequences he allows Portia to fall in love with him, she hangs on his every word, believes in everything he says absolutely. Portia has not learnt the art of reticence – and wears her heart on her sleeve, she is ripe for heartbreak at the hands of the cool and emotionally stunted people that surround her.
“Darling, I don't want you; I've got no place for you; I only want what you give. I don't want the whole of anyone.... What you want is the whole of me-isn't it, isn't it?-and the whole of me isn't there for anybody. In that full sense you want me I don't exist.”
Shortly after her arrival, Portia’s brother and sister in law – go abroad – there is no suggestion that Portia will go with them. Instead she is sent to the seaside, to stay with Mrs Heccomb Anna’s former governess. Mrs Heccomb’s step children Daphne and Dickie draw Portia into their social set – and Portia invites Eddie to stay. The weekend that Eddie spends with Portia and the Heccomb’s is an uncomfortable one, and Bowen shows the vulnerable awkwardness of Portia as she struggles to make sense of Eddie’s actions and motivations, brilliantly. Upon her return to London, Portia begins to sense the betrayals of those she loves.
Elizabeth Bowen’s writing is just sublime, her characters that drive the novel are marvellous creations, and their voices ring out in cold clear upper class accents. Each sentence is constructed just perfectly. ( )

Bowens marvelous sardonic style shows in her observations like "we are minor in everything, but our passions" and "some people our moulded by their admiration, others by their hostilities". Furthermore the description of the characters are very lively. As well as the social circumstances they are in. And the heroine of the story, the orphan Portia, is at the heart of the conflict. Her innocence leads to a dark end. Very moving and disquiting.