Advance Reader Copy

Elizabeth Bowen (Anglo-Irish, 1899-1973) was the author of at least eleven major novels, and umpteen short stories. Charles Ritchie (1906-1995) was a Canadian career diplomat who worked with the UN from its inception, was involved in NATO and was the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Love’s Civil War is an edited collection of Bowen’s letters and Ritchie’s diary entries, the documentation of a complex and at times incomprehensible love affair.

Reading this book through to the end became an effort of will, a Herculean task requiring fortitude and grit. I picked it up and put it down several times and would cheerfully have ditched it, if it hadn’t been for a commitment as an early reviewer. The struggle wasn’t with their writing. Bowen writes beautifully in her letters, with little masterpieces of description and characterisation; Ritchie less so but his were diary entries. No, the struggle was with the relationship itself and its effect on their lives. There were times when I wanted to hurl the book in frustration with both of them - particularly with her. A brilliant, articulate, fun-loving and fun woman, she nonetheless seemed to abase herself at Ritchie’s feet, submerged in a love for him which would never develop into a life together because he wouldn’t let it. Her moaned “oh Charles, Charles, Charles” or “dear beautiful, I love you, I love you” at the end of many of her letters had me gritting my teeth. “Give him the boot!”, I wanted to yell back through time, “Expend your energy on someone who will love you fully in the way you need and deserve!” But it wasn’t to be.

Part of my frustration was that I didn’t “get” her fascination with Ritchie. He came across as a self-absorbed narcissist, a careerist who always put himself and his own wants and needs first. He was a philanderer, not only betraying Bowen but his wife, Sylvia. He must have been very good at his job because he rose up steadily through the diplomatic ranks. But his purported charm seemed shallow, of the cocktail party sort. I struggled to see what Bowen saw in him, to the point where she made him into the sine qua non in her life. At times it made her seem adolescent in her affections, the angst and constant questioning those of a seventeen year old, not an accomplished woman of letters, sought after by universities to be writer in residence and adored by her students. As judgemental as this likely sounds, it was what was giving me the most trouble reading the first two thirds of the book, as he seemed almost lifeless set beside her energy.

But somehow this relationship hung on for thirty years until her death. As ultimately unfulfilled and unfulfilling as it appeared to be, as awkward and complex, as geographically challenged with continents or oceans between them, they clung to it, writing constantly to each other, growing old, if not together, at least in tandem. It’s difficult to say whether Bowen would have been as successful an author if the affair had ripened into a fully realised relationship or whether this strange yearning after the unattainable provided her with the impetus to write the way she did.

Victoria Glendinning’s editing is unobtrusive but very helpful, her asides in italics useful for fleshing out unknown individuals and their histories, their connection to Bowen’s and Ritchie’s lives. This book did have the effect of making me want to search out Bowen’s writing, to see what she had to say as a writer. It seemed strange to read about her so intimately with no knowledge of what or how she wrote.

Would I recommend this book? On the whole, yes. Although Bowen and Ritchie alternately annoyed and frustrated me, they also provided an interesting glimpse at an era which was one of tremendous upheaval and change, with marvelous bits of gossip in Bowen’s letters. Bowen lived the upper crust life with servants, the great house in Ireland, flitting to Europe, sailing to America, yet struggling with financial troubles. Ritchie was heavily involved in the restructuring of Europe at the end of the war, as well as the creation of the U.N. (although there is a paucity of his actual activities mentioned, no doubt for security reasons). So, their love affair aside, they were interesting studies. But the love affair itself is the point of the book, of the letters and the diary entries, and about this I remain somewhat ambivalent.

I came, by the end, to a kind of grudging acceptance that their relationship was what it was, however uncomfortably it sat in light of Bowen’s frequent bouts with despair and its seemingly lopsided nature. Whatever they gave each other, each seemed to need: Bowen, an object to love as a lodestone for all her ardour; Ritchie, to be the recipient of an unwavering adoration, an idolisation he seemed to need. To his credit, Ritchie went to England to be at her side when she died of lung cancer (she was a heavy smoker and a regular drinker). The last sentence of the book does indicate that whatever his surface failings, she had meant everything to him but I won’t spoil it by telling you what he wrote.

Victoria Glendinning's biography of Elizabeth Bowen is on my must read list now.

An interesting look into the affair of an author and a diplomat, as shown through letters and diary entries. The footnotes are very helpful for filling in some of the gaps for the reader; however, I do find myself wanting to know more about the principles and their motivations and perspectives.

A very enjoyable book and I am now planning to read some of Elizabeth Bowen's work.

I received this book as an Early Reviewer. For this, I am very grateful as I loved this book.
Being Irish but living in Canada, I found I sort of identified with the two main characters to some extent. I have read several of the books Elizabeth discussed in her letters and intend to read more of her work.
There is something a bit invasive about reading private letters and diary entries. It feels like snooping but is irresistible. The changes in society and the intimate details of Elizabeth's and Charles's lives are fascinating, as are the descriptions of the people they knew. I confess I skimmed over some of Elizabeth's agonizing about the separations. It is interesting how often Charles seems troubled by guilt though she is not.
It would be wonderful to fill in the blanks as the story is somewhat one-sided but Ritchie's letters to Elizabeth appear to have not survived.
Glendenning has done a great job with the material available to her. I will now seek out her biography of Bowen and look for Ritchie's published diaries too. ( )

A thirty-year love affair is recorded in Elizabeth Bowen's letters and Charles Ritchie's diary entries. Because there are more letters than entries the affair seems somewhat one-sided. At first I struggled to read this book, because Bowen's letters did seem to repeat the same themes over and over. Eventually, however, I was taken by her descriptive prose, and candid portraits of friends and acquaintances. I was less taken by Ritchie, who seemed to be a selfish and self-centered man.
To be fair I knew very little about either writer before reading this book. Glendenning's introduction does an excellent job of setting the scene, so to speak, and as a scholarly work I can find no fault with the book. After reading this book I am resolved to seek out Bowen's novels. ( )

I’ve always enjoyed epistolary novels and non-fiction books. There’s something about them that I find easy to read and I feel almost guilty as if I were reading someone’s secret diary and thoughts meant only for them. This is certainly true of Love’s Civil War since it is comprised of the letters Elizabeth Bowen wrote to Charles Ritchie, a Canadian diplomat, and his diary entries that encompass his life in Canada and abroad. Charles Ritchie was a well-known diarist and had several diaries published in his lifetime, but as to letters to Elizabeth, according to the dust jacket, “Charles did not keep his letters to her, which were returned to him after her death.”

The book begins with Ritchie’s diary in February 1941. He writes about his social life and about meeting Elizabeth, a married, successful author who divides her time between Bowen Court, her family’s ancestral home in Ireland, and England. From her letters and his diary entries, the reader gets the chronicle of their friendship and budding love affair. Still, (and even with my tendency to enjoy this type of book) it takes a bit of work to get pulled into the story. I think that may be because it is non-fiction and the author could only do so much with the material she had to work with. Despite that, I really enjoyed this book. I liked the atmosphere it evoked during the war and reading about the other well-known people that Elizabeth knew.

It is sad and more than a little bittersweet that their love for each other endured for 30 years it could never be made ‘official’ due to their other-halves. It begs the question that if it was possible, would they have married?

Footnotes are used extensively throughout the book. I found these cumbersome at first, but quickly got used to them as they provided a lot of information about the places, people and events that Elizabeth and Ritchie referred to. There are eight pages of photos which I liked – my only complaint is that there weren’t more. ( )