A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen

As you know this blog has very few book reviews but having read a World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen my mind was a whirl of thoughts and so rather than keep these thoughts muddled in my mind I thought I'd scribble them here.

Picked up in a second hand bookshop, having heard Elizabeth Bowen's name mentioned on many blogs. From reading the back cover I thought I'd be reading letters of love, oh how wonderful a slim book of love letters. Nothing like it and probably one of the reasons why it took a second attempt to read it. The first time I was commuting and it was a slow forty page read until I decided this was a book to linger over, to let the words roll around inside me, a holiday book.
It is a holiday book, a summer holiday book. When the air around you is hot and stifling. It fits the claustrophobic feel of this book. Minutes, hours, days, months and years to fill. The scene with Lilia, Fred and the letters felt like the rain had come, the atmosphere calmed and all could begin again. But then as you hope a storm will clear the air - this one doesn't.
This book journeyed with me on holiday to rural France with temperatures of 37 degrees. I felt that my view was the French equivalent of this Irish landscape. Staying in a cool house with cool stone walls reminded me of Montefort. A place where everyone knows your movements, business and sometimes even thoughts yet somehow the walls are thick and hold secrets. I finished reading with the sound of two men manually transferring logs with a wheelbarrow in the strong late morning heat  seemed appropriate and fitting.

Throughout I kept beginning the thought 'This could be a lovely quote to store for the blog' but these words were never very long - so often punctured by chance, a sour note or observation.

I shall read another Elizabeth Bowen but feel a rest from her is needed, especially if written with as much unsaid emotion as this. If these are my thoughts on this Elizabeth Bowen what would you recommend as my next read?

Castles in the air part 2

Thank you for your thoughts on castles in the air - wonderful daydreams. In the final pages of Good Wives the theme of the sisters' castles in the air concludes.


"And yet your life is different from the one you pictured so long ago. Do you remember our castles in the air?" asked Amy
...
"Yes, I remember; but the life I wanted then seems selfish, lonely and cold to me now. I haven't given up the hope that I may write a good book yet, but I can wait, and I'm sure it will be all the better for such experiences... said Jo
...
"My castle was the realized of all. I asked for splendid things, to be sure, but in my heart I knew I should be satisfied, if I had a little home, and John, and some dear children like these." said Meg.


"My castle is very different to from what I planned, but I would not alter it, though, like Jo, I don't relinquish all my artistic hopes, or confine myself to helping others fulfil their dreams of beauty.

daydream

Perhaps our real life is better than our castles in the air.

Castles in the air part 1

Castles in the air

When you read these words what do they mean to you?
I have now read two books this year with references to 'castles in the air'. Half way through writing this post I saw a sign 'Look up to see the castle in the air'. I don't think I'd heard it before, and feel I've slightly missed out. Do you know where it originally comes from? Do you know of any other books that refer to this phrase? Am I being particularly dense and ill read/unknowlegeable in not knowing it? Was it a phrase of a particular era?

In My Brilliant Career written by a very young Australian and published in 1901.
'With aunt Helen, however, I was content anywhere, and build a castle in the air, wherein one day she and I were always to live together - for ever!' Miles Franklin My Brilliant Career

In Little Women (published 1868) there's a whole chapter titled 'Castles in the air'
"Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true, and we could live in them?" Said Jo


Meg "I should like a lovely house, full of all sorts of luxurious things; nice food, pretty clothes, handsome furniture, pleasant people, and heaps of money, I am to be mistress of it, and manage it as I like, with plenty of servants, so I never need work a bit. How I should enjoy it! For I wouldn't be idle, but do good, and make every one love me dearly."

luxurious

Jo "I'd have a stable full of Arabian steeds, rooms piled with books, and I'd write out of a magic inkstand, so that my works should be as famous.... I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle, - something heroic or wonderful, - that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all, some day. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous; that would suit me, so that is my favourite dream."

books

Beth "Mine is to stay at home safe with father and mother, and help take care of the family."

home

Amy "I have lots of wishes; but the pet one is to be an artist, and go to Rome, and do fine pictures, and be the best artist in the whole world,"

Roma

Can you answer my questions?
What would your castle in the air be?

FlarePath

Very early on whilst watching the play Flarepath last week a thought struck me...

Here was war written by a man, with men waiting to go to battle and all their thoughts and feelings. I reflected that most of the books I read tend to be about the women who are long term left behind by their husbands and their thoughts and feelings. I don't really read about the side of war that is portrayed in Flarepath. Visiting your husband, waiting for him to come back from the latest RAF mission. The tension. How the men cope with this day to day, every day.

It's an unfinished thought but did the men who were fighting write poetry - it's more immediate can be written on a scrap of paper. The women books - longer as they had longer to explore their feelings.
Please help me finish this thought - by sharing yours.