A WORLD OF LOVE

by Elizabeth Bowen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 17, 1954

A new novel is again a fragmentation of sensibility, as well as a delicate and perhaps disconcerting reminder that time does not dull the loss of love and the hope of its return. If Montefort, an old house and neglected, suggests a more animate and attractive past, so do its inmates- Antonia who had inherited the house from her cousin, Guy, and Lilia who had hoped to marry him. Here they live in the uneasy affiliation of the man they once shared. Toward Lilia, Antonia feels a sense of obligation; toward Antonia, Lilia an ingrate and suspicious resentment; while Guy finds ""immortality in their longings"" which feed on expectations rather than memories. This immortality is again perpetuated when Jane, Lilia's daughter, discovers a sheaf of love letters in Guy's hand- once written perhaps to Antonia, perhaps to Lilia- and they revive the reveries of love- for Jane too who will find its presence elsewhere.... The tattletale vestiges of passion, not the bloom, its imprint rather than its impulse, all this is a register of fugitive feeling and fine-drawn observation.... For the discriminating audience which will be hers.

Pub Date: Jan. 17, 1954

ISBN: 1400031052

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1954

Categories: FICTION