Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The Last September

3.41 of 5 stars 3.41 · rating details · 787 ratings · 99 reviews

About the Author:

ELIZABETH BOWEN (1899-1973), a central figure in London literary society, who counted among her friends Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, is widely considered to be one of the most distinguished novelists of the modern era, combining psychological realism with an unparalleled gift for poetic impressionism. Born in Dublin in 1899,

...more

Paperback, 208 pages

Published September 1st 1990 by Penguin Classics (first published 1929)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Best Books of the Decade: 1920's

161st out of 237 books — 310 voters

Best British Literature

469th out of 723 books — 648 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,890)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 14, 2011 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century-early-to-mid, fiction, vita-virginia-violet-and-kindred, brit-lit, worlds-lost-dead-and-dying, ireland, its-the-quiet-ones

So, I’m not a huge fan of Important Subject books. Books that modestly proclaim on their jackets that they are Essential Reading about a Crucial Time in history that reveal Human Truths about our Darkest Hours, or authors who set soap operas in times of great stress that come with their own built in pile of cultural garbage so as to do the emotional work that their depiction of a relationship is not capable of doing. It’s almost worse when authors like this attempt to deepen their surface drama-...more

24 likes · like · see review

Mar 23, 2011 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: slow swords

Recommended to Mariel by: backspace century

The Last September does not have power over me for what is believed to be lost. I do not mourn the loss of the English in Ireland living the good life of big houses.
What, Mariel? Sorry, my trains of thoughts are crashing. What?
Tell about the movie! Not yet-- okay, the movie is no good (nevermind that twenty year old me kinda liked it! Why are you admitting that? It isn't relevant to now!) because it evokes the feelings of rainy dinner party days and first horniness. Dinner parties like people ge...more The Last September does not have power over me for what is believed to be lost. I do not mourn the loss of the English in Ireland living the good life of big houses.
What, Mariel? Sorry, my trains of thoughts are crashing. What?
Tell about the movie! Not yet-- okay, the movie is no good (nevermind that twenty year old me kinda liked it! Why are you admitting that? It isn't relevant to now!) because it evokes the feelings of rainy dinner party days and first horniness. Dinner parties like people getting together and trying to decide on some vague focal point in the distance that will get them all. Not people but guest lists. It didn't get them. There should have been some wrong feeling in there that wasn't just first horniness playing dress up at ways of life, first loves and breakthroughs... There were no breakthroughs! Just dinner party decisions.
Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September is not those things. It is the pain of someone in a far, far removed relationship. Maybe you don't know those people at all. You don't think it was such a good relationship. It's really for the best they aren't together anymore. "But I loved being with him even though I called him twenty times a day and he was never mine to begin with." Yeah, right. Maybe you can recall how you felt almost in love with other things. But this isn't love. It really isn't your love.
Bowen did have power over me in her mind reading capabilities. Like, I feel like I can read those minds. It beats any experience of listening in to vague shit. If you're going to get invested in someone else's relationship, at least you get the most feeling it will allow (I mean, only the involved parties really know how it feels. Taking sides? What's that?). You might as well be watching and listening for those heartbeats, even it cannot break your heart. Maybe I wanted to break theirs. Almost. If there had been more power. But I did want to listen. That's what I love about Bowen, even when I don't love her as much as I can (The Death of the Heart is my most relevant favorite). (less)

6 likes · like · see review

Sep 15, 2012 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

Elizabeth Bowen's novel of the Irish rebellion after WWI reads like a still life painting with lines drawn deliberately around the rural setting, characters in equilibrium, and a motionless plot until the inevitable, tragic end.

With the war between the Irish Republicans and the British Army escalating outside their gates, Sir Richard and Lady Myra Naylor's ordinary life continues inside Danielstown, their County Cork home. There are guest arrivals, tennis parties, army dances, and scheduled teas...more

6 likes · like · see review

Aug 31, 2012 Bettie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Bettie by: Laura

Shelves: film-only, autumn-2012, britain-ireland, lifestyles-deathstyles, published-1929, period-piece

http://youtu.be/6EDmYfR9R5E

Michael Gambon ... Sir Richard Naylor
Tom Hickey ... O'Brien
Keeley Hawes ... Lois Farquar
David Tennant ... Captain Gerald Colthurst
Richard Roxburgh ...Captain Daventry
Gary Lydon ... Peter Connolly
Maggie Smith ... Lady Myra Naylor

Summary - In 1920s Ireland, an elderly couple reside over a tired country estate. Living with them are their high-spirited niece, their Oxford student nephew, and married house guests, who are trying to cover up that they are presently homeless...more

2 likes · like · see review

Apr 03, 2013 Rita rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british-novel

1929.
Bowen born 1899, only child of Irish landowner, which is the setting of this book.
Bowen is fantastic at character sketches, dialog, subtle interactions between people [mostly wealthy ones who don't work for a living].

The book, at least for me, is more dated than I would like. Many turns of speech and references are ones that mean little to me, but must have been immediately recognizable and meaningful to readers at the time.

Interesting perspective on the "Irish Troubles" of 1920 --being the...more

like · see review

Mar 13, 2012 Dirk rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who loves fine writing

Recommended to Dirk by: Jane Burton

This novel is set among the Anglo-Irish upper classes, the class of Lady Gregory for Yates fans, in the 1920s. The protagonist is a young girl in her 20s whose mother has died and is in effect the ward of her aunt, Lady Naylor. The book deals with friendships and love affairs of young women of this class while the threat of the IRA hulks in the background. What is wonderful about this book is the writing. The dialogue is witty, sometimes bordering on something you would hear in Oscar Wilde. Thes...more This novel is set among the Anglo-Irish upper classes, the class of Lady Gregory for Yates fans, in the 1920s. The protagonist is a young girl in her 20s whose mother has died and is in effect the ward of her aunt, Lady Naylor. The book deals with friendships and love affairs of young women of this class while the threat of the IRA hulks in the background. What is wonderful about this book is the writing. The dialogue is witty, sometimes bordering on something you would hear in Oscar Wilde. These people are as a class evasive, and the dialogue is amazingly able to make clear to the reader serious issues that are expressed but unspoken. In particular, Lady Naylor seems incapable of a sincere utterance.
Lady Naylor asserts that the protagonist and her admirer should not marry partly for lack of money, and partly because they do not understand what love means, or each what the word 'love' means to the other. She seems right to me. In a way, they are the opposite of Romeo and Juliet, who know what love is and know what love means each to the other while the opposition of their family seems to us wrongheaded. It makes sense that the heroine of The Last September should lack this knowledge, for, though we may disagree with the Montague and Capulet parents, their children grew up in an atmosphere of passionately sincere emotion and clear expression, which the people in The Last September sadly lack.
The book could be criticized for treating the Irish rebellion unfully, but only if you did not read it carefully. The threat is always looming. It could be criticized for a thin plot and for wrapping things up at the end rather rapidly.
But in a way, all I have written above is irrelevant. It is the amazing writing. Consider this paragraph:

The screen of trees that reached like an arm from behind the house - embracing the lawns, banks, and terraces in mild ascent - had darkened, deepening into a forest. Like splintered darkness, branches pierced the faltering dusk of leaves. Evening drenched the trees; the beeches were soundless cataracts. Behind the trees, pressing in from the open and empty country like an invasion, the orange bright sky crept and smoldered. Firs, bearing up to pierce, melted against the brightness. Somewhere there was a sunset in which the mountains lay like glass.

Any book with paragraphs like that gets 5 stars from me.
(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Feb 05, 2011 Justin Evans rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The earliest Bowen I've read- not as great as Heat of the Day, but one of the best I've read. The prose is extremely dense, and beautiful; the characters are compelling; but there's not much story to speak of, and the ending's kind of unnecessary and lame. I wish I could have a chat at the bar with some of the people whose reviews complain about a lack of irony on the narrator's part, saying that Lois is self-obsessed, that everyone is self-obsessed, and that Bowen thinks this is the way things...more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 17, 2010 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Published in 1929, this novel by Elizabeth Bowen takes place in 1920 in County Cork, Ireland, and involves the lives of Protestant Anglo-Irish landowners who are only gradually coming to terms with the fact that their way of life is about to come to an end as Ireland is about to become independent of Britain. Their leisured existence is being played out on large plantations while, in the background, British army patrols and Irish patriots are engaged in a sort of guerrilla war. This landed arist...more Published in 1929, this novel by Elizabeth Bowen takes place in 1920 in County Cork, Ireland, and involves the lives of Protestant Anglo-Irish landowners who are only gradually coming to terms with the fact that their way of life is about to come to an end as Ireland is about to become independent of Britain. Their leisured existence is being played out on large plantations while, in the background, British army patrols and Irish patriots are engaged in a sort of guerrilla war. This landed aristocracy is above all engaged in a desperate attempt at denial, carrying on their lives as if what is happening outside their gates is a temporary and minor nuisance, a mere inconvenience.

I am struck with the fact that nothing much seems to have happened during the first three quarters of the book . Lives go on as usual, interpersonal tensions flare and subside unrelated to political events, parties are held and visits are made, engagements are made and broken. The underlying tension is in the background but unremitting. The mood is one of stasis, a kind of intolerable suspension that is ever present at the edge of one’s field of vision. Bowen has deliberately cultivated a sense of relative banality hovering over an abyss, and as the novel moves forward without this tension being resolved, the tension inexorably builds. Additional tensions arise as one becomes aware of the differences between the Anglo-Irish and the British military, each of which misunderstands the other.

Final crises do occur, bringing the novel to a satisfactory and realistic conclusion. Bowen has presented a picture that is true to the era and events in which her novel is sent, and the reader is left with greater appreciation for the ambiguities. In addition, it should be noted that Bowen writes convincingly and beautifully, her prose flowing and evocative of both Irish civilization and Irish wilderness. She is sensitive to the nuances of dialogue and class, convincingly portraying the differences between her characters and developing them fully.
(less)

1 like · like · see review

Jan 15, 2010 Christin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. My distaste for Elizabeth Bowen and Lois, the self-obsessed protagonist of her novel, The Last September , set in the face of the anti-colonial turmoil of the War for Irish Independence, is not misinformed. The character’s Anglo-Irish superiority and willful obliviousness outrages me because Bowen portrays it as entirely natural and without irony, even with an elegiac wistfulfulness that sets my teeth on edge. Lois, one could argue like the rest of her family who are all virtually unaffected by...more My distaste for Elizabeth Bowen and Lois, the self-obsessed protagonist of her novel, The Last September , set in the face of the anti-colonial turmoil of the War for Irish Independence, is not misinformed. The character’s Anglo-Irish superiority and willful obliviousness outrages me because Bowen portrays it as entirely natural and without irony, even with an elegiac wistfulfulness that sets my teeth on edge. Lois, one could argue like the rest of her family who are all virtually unaffected by the violence outside the walls of their estate, prefers her own fantasies to reality. Am I guilty of similar transgressions when I become immersed in my work, my life, at the expense of all else? The idea makes me shudder. Bowen seems to take in stride, as if silly girls are destined to become silly women, as if that is the proper way of the world and there are no other possibilities for them.

Lois is infatuated with Gerald, a British Black and Tan, but she also briefly imagines being in love with a married friend of her uncle’s, Mr. Montmorency, who literally could have been her father as he was once in love with Lois’ mother. She is fond of making outlandish pronouncements such as, "I hate women. But I can't think how to be anything else," and dreaming up romantic, idyllic European tours where she can travel unfettered and alone (unheard of for a lady in that day) to places where people “don’t care for politics.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with those repressive and delimiting attitudes, but nevertheless, I can still resent the naïve and ridiculous mindsets they foster in these pale, privileged, delicate but useless women. (I have more respect for Molly Bloom, and as anyone who reads my work knows, Marion and I are hardly bff, because Joyce uses her as a tool to valorize an anti-intellectual purely sensual (not to mention slutty) and chauvinistic portrayal of women.) Calling Lois insufferable really doesn’t cover it. While she and her friends are obsessing over petty social slights, houseguests, the weather, and tennis parties, Gerald and his fellows at-arms are out capturing and murdering rebels and innocent civilians in the name of God and Empire without so much as a second thought. I wish I could maintain the guise of critical objectivity, but I find Lois and Bowen, as her creator, utterly abhorrent. I want to smack their smug, Ascendancy faces.

So, Gerald ends up murdered in an ambush after dumping Lois, who heads to Tours. In February, after her departure, Danielstown and the two other local Big Houses are burned to the ground. I can’t call it an entirely satisfying conclusion because Lois doesn’t seem genuinely devastated or irrevocably altered by Gerald’s death, or if she is, Bowen doesn’t do an effective job of portraying her as such. In fact, there is very little of Lois’ inner turmoil; she flees to the garden to see the last place she and Gerald spoke, but she is not weeping uncontrollably and inconsolably. She seems to stoically endure in a rather uncompelling way. Trust, I am the queen of subtlety and can find a way to rationalize pretty much any turn on a dime conversion. As previously stated, I have a very forgiving heart but there was no perceptible change.

I think the whole project of the novel is a strange one and crystallizes in Lois’ cousin, Laurence’s dreams of an alternative past, present, and future with different outcomes. Laurence is the standard laze-about abstract Oxbridge type, reminiscent of Tibby in E.M. Forster's Howards End . Lois, too, from her romance with Gerald to her friendship with Marda Norton is full of fantasy. The Naylors and the Montmorencys seem likewise willfully unaware of the conditions of violence that surround them, even if they are ostensibly offended by the actions of the army—they do nothing and barely react at all beyond some brief complaining— until one of the other officers comes to Danielstown to announce Gerald’s death. The whole environment of The Last September with its focus on minor social dramas and privileged malaise with national conflict as merely a minor annoyance in the backdrop, a ripple that barely troubles the placidly banal surface of their lives until smack-bang at the novel's end, seems to function as Bowen’s own dream of alternative universe unmarred by struggle. Yet ignorance is not bliss, but ennui.
(less)

1 like · like · see review

Apr 15, 2013 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From the beginning of the novel, the reader realizes what the characters refuse to admit--that Anglo-Irish society, its “big houses” and plantations, its tennis parties and teas are all doomed. It is “The Last September” because within a year all these will have vanished. But even while living the good life, these characters feel themselves insubstantial; nothing feels real to them; their own existence seems shadowy. The Anglo-Irish seem suspended, unable to act, caught between disdain for the B...more

like · see review

Jan 18, 2012 Mandy Jo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: éirinn-go-brách

This week’s headline? "what Lois was"

Why this book? suggestion from Amazon

Which book format? packaged trade paperback

Primary reading environment? "the domestic landscape"

Any preconceived notions? "Can you draw?"

Identify most with? "my wretched virtue"

Three little words? "harnessing their waterfall"

Goes well with? I dunno; tea?

Recommend this to? "common little hell-cat"

It took me forever to read this. It was good, and really beautifully insightful at times. It was just boring.

I can't get worked u...more

like · see review

Feb 03, 2013 Nigeyb rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great art is both challenging and accessible. Elizabeth Bowen's highly wrought Modernist writing style resulted in me having to frequently re-read passages and ponder their meaning. It's not a style I enjoy. I like clarity and prefer to be led by hand.

It's a shame because she manages to evoke a clear sense of Ireland during this key period of turmoil (the troubles in 1920), and specifically how the Anglo-Irish aristocracy appear to have refused to accept that anything was wrong. This means the b...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 02, 2012 Donna Girouard rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm finished with this book, but I did NOT finish it. I can't. I can't get past the language. Bowen may be Irish but she writes like a Brit: "Two armchairs faced round intently into the empty grate with its paper fan." "She glanced intently along the rows of books."

Overuse of adverbs and adjectives is a problem for me:

"'Aren't we dusty?'" she added as Lois said nothing. "'Aren't we too terribly dusty?'" (4)

"'And she would do nothing but say she was dusty, and of course she was dusty, so there w...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 11, 2013 Elizabeth Fremantle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

THE LAST SEPTEMBER, set in 1920, tells of a young girl at the tail end of a summer spent with well-to-do relatives in Ireland at the height of the troubles and her naive liaison with an army officer. The family live in their enchanted world in a round of tennis parties and social visits seeming to turn a blind eye to the violence that lies on their doorstep but the reader is always aware of it and an inevitability hangs ominously over the novel that gives it a deeply ironic feel.

Bowen's style is...more

like · see review

Feb 29, 2012 Victoria Young rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: modernism, 1001-books

Generally, I found The Last September an interesting, pleasant read. Stylistically, it reminded me quite a bit of Virginia Woolf's writing. There's not as much obvious stream of consciousness in the narration, but like Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen uses a fast moving, at times scattered narrative style to replicate the shallow, disconnected interactions of her characters. The world of Danielstown is drawn in vivid, impressionistic imagery- Bowen uses inventive, unexpected metaphors (I particularly like...more

like · see review

Oct 07, 2012 Bay rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is tough to read if you are not familiar with Irish history.... I'm taking an Irish Modern Fiction class this semester, so I've become somewhat acquainted with a bit of Irish history. The Last September is about an Anglo-Irish family, who are kind of in a uncomfortable/dangerous position. Being Anglo-Irish, they support Britain, but they also feel deeply connected to Ireland and identify themselves as Irish. So when the British troops come over to quell Irish rebels who are fighting for hom...more

like · see review

Aug 23, 2009 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is, of course, one of the seminal Irish "Big House" novels, focusing on the wealth and ease of the Anglo-Irish at that moment when national conflagration is about to break the idyll. Bowen's descriptive style is rich and dense, at times seemingly forcing this reader into multiple readings of individual sentences and paragraphs, but in a way that produced not frustration but a sense that her powers of observation and social commentary are sophisticated and acute (there's perhaps a Woolfian s...more

like · see review

May 27, 2008 Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lyrical and haunting, about a period in Irish life long-fled, though the novel was written less than a decade after its ending. My favorite after "Death of the Heart" and "House in Paris." Style is demanding, a bit self-consciously so.

1 like · like · see review

Feb 08, 2013 Val rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bright-young-things

Elizabeth Bowen has written a modernist social comedy set in Ireland during 'the troubles'.
The style is modernist because it includes detailed descriptions of what everyone is thinking, looking at, feeling and doing, including a lot of everyday trivial things. It is very well written, although like the teenage Lois, you can't help wishing something exciting would happen.
The members of the family and their friends very rarely say what they are thinking or feeling, at best they hint at it. This ma...more

like · see review

Feb 20, 2013 David rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a book club choice. I have to admit that I had had not heard of Elizabeth Bowen, but it turns out she was a highly respected novelist and short story writer. "The Last September" was published in 1929 and takes it theme from when the author herself was eighteen and living in her childhood home in Ireland in 1920.

The story of an English country house in the middle of Ireland at the start of "the troubles", is quite interesting. But the occupation of the British Army and the rise of the...more This was a book club choice. I have to admit that I had had not heard of Elizabeth Bowen, but it turns out she was a highly respected novelist and short story writer. "The Last September" was published in 1929 and takes it theme from when the author herself was eighteen and living in her childhood home in Ireland in 1920.

The story of an English country house in the middle of Ireland at the start of "the troubles", is quite interesting. But the occupation of the British Army and the rise of the IRA only rumble in the background and hardly effect the lives or conciousness of the country house set. Danielstown is the home to Sir Richard and Lady Naylor and their orphan niece Lois, whose story this is. Also living there is Laurence, an unrelated nephew. There are many comings and goings, tennis parties, lunches, walks in the country, dances and visitors. So not much of a plot, but an undercurrant of how this can not go on for ever.

Lois is at a crossroads - "I must do something" as she has no future plans. Her romance with a young British officer seems a distraction more than anything. She is lacking in any real character, but then at eighteen with a sheltered upbringing, this is no real surprise. And that itself is a flaw in the book. The snobbish Lady Naylor could have been the one really intersting character, but she only comes into her own near the end.

What distinguishes this novel from any I have ever read is the prose. Never have I had to read the same passage twice so often. It seems to me that Elizabeth Bowen was writing in an ultra modern way for the 1920's. Sometimes it actually comes off, but more often I gave up trying to understand what she was trying to say: "the house became a magnet to their dependence" - "an apprehensive interchange with her own reflection". There are whole paragraphs that are far more ambiguous than these two extracts.

So I found this a frustrating read. Sometimes boring, ocassionally startlingly brilliant, but overall the language frequently had me wishing to have done with it. I will be very glad to get back to a modern novel. (less)

like · see review

Nov 21, 2009 Liz (Consumed by Books) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 4-star, own, class-novel-at-the-end-of-the-empir, class-twentieth-century-irish-litra

The Last September is a social comedy, along the lines of Pride and Prejudice, yet with slightly darker elements. This is also written in a much more specific political and historical context, specifically in Ireland in 1920, around the time of the revolution. I read this book for a class and definitely really enjoyed it.

I think part of what makes this book is the characters. I definitely laughed out loud a t several points throughout the book. It may seem like it would be hard to connect with t...more

2 likes · like · see review

Oct 25, 2012 Philip Lane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not sure I can say too much witout spoiling this one because the most startling thing about it was the end. It seemed very bland until the last few pages and I wasn't totally convinced. It did feel as though it was picking up in the second half and troubling undercurrents started to appear below the apparent smooth surface of these Anglo-Irish families. It reminds me of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis which set some 25 years later about a group of rich friends who play tennis whilst a war rages...more

like · see review

Jan 21, 2009 James rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The novel is set in 1920 and while the Irish war of independence rages outside the gates of their County Cork home, Sir Richard Naylor and his Anglo-Irish family continue their privileged life of tea and tennis. Bowen's 1929 novel is a strongly autobiographical portrait of a lost class marking out its ﬁnal moments — every garden party, every house guest and every ﬂirtation is touched by a sense of impending extinction, all delineated by her precise prose. One more reason to return to Elizabeth B...more

like · see review

Jan 09, 2010 Josie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bowen writes beautifully, sort of verdantly, about Irish country houses. The book is about a house party that lasts a whole summer. By "party" I mean "group of visitors." The focus, Lois, is 19 and doesn't know what to do with herself. She is pretty dull, but she gets interesting as time goes on. It sort of wasn't funny enough, but then maybe it was sly. The characters are good. The English are set up in Cork to quash rebellion amongst the Irish lower classes, and these Irish in the big houses a...more

like · see review

Sep 05, 2012 Anushka rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: university-text

Okay I have to confess i rushed through the second half of this one, and this is a text you need ot read slooowly so I've probably missed a lot of stuff that is mind-blowing. oh woe is me. this book was depressing. like it really was just so slow and morose and depressing I wanted to gag. There was no hope for any of the characters and all of them were annoying, except maybe the single woman who was engaged to the English guy and she was going to get married. Lady whatshername - oh god. So. so....more

like · see review

Oct 28, 2012 Jocelyn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, classics, read-before-i-died

Read for class.

I don't like that the cover showing up for this ISBN-13 is the movie tie-in, not the lovely painting of a lady that I actually have. Seriously, my cover copy is so much prettier.

///

Okay, this review is going to be short.

The Last September is about an Anglo-Irish land-owning family and their daily lives, set against the Irish unrest and turmoil.

While I found this book hard to get into (the writing can be quite dry at moments), I really enjoyed how Bowen seemed to lure me into a sle...more

like · see review

Jan 28, 2013 Lori Baldi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: regular-novel

This book was pretty good but not the outstanding book that I had been given to expect. The writing was beautiful -- very lyrical and evocative of the setting. I had not read anything with the type of setting shown here. The Anglo-Irish at the time of the Irish over-throw of the English. I was amazed at the fuzzy headed thinkning shown by the main characters and of course they did interact with the English soldiers and their people. There was also some intermigling with the Catholic Irish who we...more

like · see review

Dec 08, 2011 Sonia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(Recensione natalizia dal blog)
Difficile nel ventunesimo secolo riuscire ad apprezzare a pieno un romanzo come L'ultimo settembre. Immersi nel ritmo frenetico della nostra società, guidati da scelte utilitaristiche, abituati ad andare dritti al punto, noi lettori di oggi possiamo sentirci dei disadattati tra le pagine della Bowen.
Speriamo da un momento all'altro che l'introduzione a quello che sarà il romanzo prima o poi termini per dare consistenza al romanzo vero e proprio, rendendoci conto fi...more (Recensione natalizia dal blog)
Difficile nel ventunesimo secolo riuscire ad apprezzare a pieno un romanzo come L'ultimo settembre. Immersi nel ritmo frenetico della nostra società, guidati da scelte utilitaristiche, abituati ad andare dritti al punto, noi lettori di oggi possiamo sentirci dei disadattati tra le pagine della Bowen.
Speriamo da un momento all'altro che l'introduzione a quello che sarà il romanzo prima o poi termini per dare consistenza al romanzo vero e proprio, rendendoci conto fin troppo tardi che in realtà non era un'introduzione, ma si era nel pieno della storia vera e propria.
Mi sono sentita un pesce fuor d'acqua di fronte a quello stile di vita, a quei discorsi e a quelle preoccupazioni. Mi sono sentita superiore, ridendo di ciò che scorreva davanti ai miei occhi, e tutto questo perché non riuscivo a capirlo, non riuscivo ad accettarne la frivolezza, la superficialità. O ciò che a me appariva pura superficialità. E non riuscivo a conciliare quella scrittura magistrale al contenuto così... vuoto.
Come se quel niente prendesse forma concreta attraverso le parole e assumesse maggiore significato.
Una scrittrice da ammirare per aver saputo descrivere in maniera incantevole un luogo, l'Irlanda, un tempo, il 1928 e chiunque si sia trovato a passare per la tenuta di Danielstown.
A chi puoi regalare questo romanzo?
Regalalo a chi non è completamente immerso nella società tecnologica di oggi. Regalalo a chi ama trascorrere serate a fare lunghe chiacchierate, per il semplice gusto di scambiarsi opinioni. Regalalo a chi non va di fretta, a chi non corre dritto al punto, a chi non legge una storia per conoscerne il finale: L'ultimo settembre sembra restare sospeso nel tempo, senza un preciso inizio e una determinata fine...
Regalalo a chi è interessato a conoscere la vita di chi aveva il privilegio di non dover lavorare, di non dover preoccuparsi della guerra o di altro, se non di come accogliere i propri ospiti e di fare piacevoli passeggiate.
Regalalo a chi legge per il gusto di leggere, a chi non è alla ricerca di un particolare romanzo.
Regalalo a chi ama la scrittura.(less)

like · see review

Jan 03, 2012 Zan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is my second Bowen novel (first was Heat of the Day, which I am convinced I should give another shot; I have dubbed that my "narcolepsy book" since I fell asleep nearly every time I picked it up, but now think I might be in a better position to appreciate it--but that's neither here nor there).

This book was slow-moving and ornate, neither of these traits necessarily a negative in my opinion. The novel is set in Ireland in the 1920s during "The Troubles" (a classic Irish understatement) betw...more

like · see review

Nov 11, 2011 matt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: eire, fictions-of-the-big-it, social-crit, ladies-night

An Anglo-Irish novel of manners with overtures of a buildungsroman and subtle, distilled poetry of place and time. A few of of my classmates remarked how it seemed like something written by Jane Austen- the praise is pretty high, and thematically well taken.

Some famous critic (Edward Said? Lionel Trilling? Somebody help me out here) remarked that the heroes and heroines in Austen's fiction are painstakingly indifferent to the world around them- it's all upper bourgeoise drawing rooms, garden pa...more

1 like · like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 62 63 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Bright Young Things: February 2013 The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen	64	36	Mar 14, 2013 12:16pm
The Perks of Bein...: 'The Last September' Discussion Thread (September 2012)	52	59	Oct 15, 2012 01:06am

combine
Other Editions (7)

More editions...

Genres

European Literature > Irish Literature

29 users

Classics

24 users

Historical Fiction

15 users

Cultural > Ireland

15 users

Novels

9 users

Literary Fiction

7 users

European Literature > British Literature

6 users

Literature > 20th Century

4 users

Academic > School

3 users

Academic > College

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

The Land of Spices
by Kate O'Brien
Amongst Women
by John McGahern
Fools of Fortune
by William Trevor
Reading in the Dark
by Seamus Deane
All Passion Spent
by Vita Sackville-West

About Elizabeth Bowen

Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen, CBE was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer.

More about Elizabeth Bowen...

Books by Elizabeth Bowen

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About L'ultimo settembre

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from The Last September

“But surely love wouldn't get so much talked about if there were not something in it?” — 3 people liked it

“Livvy noted there seemed some communal feeling between the married: any wife could be faintly rude to anyone else's husband.” — 3 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: The Last September
avg rating	preview: The Last September Goodreads rating: 3.41 (787 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/531308.The_Last_September?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1175570920l/531308.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/531308.The_Last_September?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen[/url]

The Last September

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website