IVY GRIPPED THE STEPS

by Elizabeth Bowen ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 11, 1946

The very particular qualities associated with Elizabeth Bowen, the fine fastidiousness, the refinement of intelligence, again displayed to happy advantage in a selection of twelve short stories. Here, once again, in the title story, Sunday Afternoon, is the Jamesian mood, the restricted intellectual environment in which she is perhaps most successful, the passing- regretted- of the old world of cultivated attachments, the incursion of the modern. Others are lighter in touch, in mood, from the delicate caricature of Careless Talk, the little irony of Pink Nay, to the heartier, farcical, The Cheery Soul, Green Holly, the supernatural Demon Lover, and the poignant Mysterious Kor, the unlived lives of this war as a boy and a girl- in London- can find no place to be alone together...Here is a very special talent; a subtlety- occasionally carried to an excess where substance is dissipated; an immaculacy which, within its self-imposed limits, reaches artistic perfection.

Pub Date: April 11, 1946

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1946

Categories: FICTION