Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
43rd out of 113 books
—
55 voters
Eva Trout
Eva Trout, Elizabeth Bowen’s last novel, epitomizes her bold exploration of the territory between the comedy of manners and cutting social commentary.
Orphaned at a young age, Eva has found a home of sorts in Worcestershire with her former schoolteacher, Iseult Arbles, and Iseult's husband, Eric. From a safe distance in London, her legal guardian, Constantine, assumes that...more
Orphaned at a young age, Eva has found a home of sorts in Worcestershire with her former schoolteacher, Iseult Arbles, and Iseult's husband, Eric. From a safe distance in London, her legal guardian, Constantine, assumes that...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
February 4th 2003
by Anchor
(first published 1968)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
662)
Nov 20, 2010
Mariel
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
cuckoo, cuckoo
Recommended to Mariel by:
Laugh, I nearly died
One of my main reasons for reading is... Fuck, I was gonna write "understanding" but that's not really it. (For one thing, I don't.) I was hooked on Elizabeth Bowen from the start because she puts into words the expressions I only get in visuals (and sometimes I gotta try them on myself to see what they feel like. I'm a social retard. I've never mastered the "default expression"). Sinister shadows, meanings in protracted sighs, shit that goes over your head but you can still sense it was probabl...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Bowen's Eva Trout is a dynamic story of a complicated young woman in late 1950's and 1960's England. Eva is wealthy, an orphaned young woman, emotionally remote and unsure even of the value of attachment. Her actions are rash, unexplainable and without true pattern. The scenes change often in the story as she finds reason to leave any homelike setting she may have established. She puzzles at relationships and acts detrimentally toward those steadily connected to her: a guardian who was once her...more
Being my first Elizabeth Bowen read I have nothing to compare it with. I would like to read more of the author’s work before taking a critical stand. Some of my notes were as follows:
… the novel is becoming a bit bizarre and rather hard to understand - chapter 12
… the novel is once again flowing and I am less confused – part 2, chapter 1
… in this novel dysfunction runs rampant. The characters, almost all the characters do not take responsibility for their actions. It seems throughout the story i...more
… the novel is becoming a bit bizarre and rather hard to understand - chapter 12
… the novel is once again flowing and I am less confused – part 2, chapter 1
… in this novel dysfunction runs rampant. The characters, almost all the characters do not take responsibility for their actions. It seems throughout the story i...more
An unexpected find--- subtly, bleakly, wickedly funny. One of those dark British comedies of manners that should've been filmed in the heyday of small quirky Sixties films. Eva Trout herself is a lovely, surreal, romantically fey heroine who'd be remarkably difficult to cast. "Eva Trout" makes a lovely bookend to Bowen's "Death of the Heart", by the way. A little black gem of a book that's very much worth tracking down.
The blurb on the edition of this book I have says "Bowen is magnificent when she writes about...ambiguity" (Margaret Drabble). Ambiguity is right! The reader has no idea what is going on in the first scene. Each passing scene becomes a bit clearer until the last scene is crystal clear. But the whole book leaves you with a thousand unanswered questions. And, yet, the questions are not as demanding as you would have guessed half way through.
A young woman (Eva Trout), who grew up motherless and wa...more
A young woman (Eva Trout), who grew up motherless and wa...more
“Eva Trout” Elizabeth Bowen. 11/24/12
You can hardly ever go wrong with heroine-titled tomes; books like “Olive Kitteridge,” “Madame Bovary,” “Elizabeth Costello,”, etc. But for the first time I was somewhat disappointed when I chose another, at random, to read (this tactic had been generally foolproof before). Eva the main character seems disjointed from her time and place—she is mysterious yet languid; passionate though very passive—in all, still very much adhering to the ol’ Victorian values w...more
You can hardly ever go wrong with heroine-titled tomes; books like “Olive Kitteridge,” “Madame Bovary,” “Elizabeth Costello,”, etc. But for the first time I was somewhat disappointed when I chose another, at random, to read (this tactic had been generally foolproof before). Eva the main character seems disjointed from her time and place—she is mysterious yet languid; passionate though very passive—in all, still very much adhering to the ol’ Victorian values w...more
This is the story of an orphaned girl who lost her mother in a crash airplane accident. She is raised by his father and after his death, by her solicitor, Constantine.
During her whole life, she tries to get her own free life even if she is not to grown up in doing that. Her inheritance will help to disengage from the Dancey's influence.
This is a psychological romance in the sense that it shows how Eva managed to arrive in her adulthood even if she has to pay a high price for it.
During her whole life, she tries to get her own free life even if she is not to grown up in doing that. Her inheritance will help to disengage from the Dancey's influence.
This is a psychological romance in the sense that it shows how Eva managed to arrive in her adulthood even if she has to pay a high price for it.
Currently re-reading and I'm caught up in the setting. Almost half way through....I'm not following what's going on with the relationships. Hope all will become clear.
I also own The Heat of the Day by this author and plan to re-read. I then may set each book free!
Dated, but interesting. Still unclear as to some details I wanted. Did I miss them along the way? Also, the ending is quite creepy (in some respects). Motives? I don't know. Something was definitely missing for me with this one.
I also own The Heat of the Day by this author and plan to re-read. I then may set each book free!
Dated, but interesting. Still unclear as to some details I wanted. Did I miss them along the way? Also, the ending is quite creepy (in some respects). Motives? I don't know. Something was definitely missing for me with this one.
I honestly have no idea what to make of this book. Bowen's writing is beautiful, but she's produced a novel with a completely enigmatic central character, in which anything interesting or exciting happens before or after the action she describes. Weird, sullen, awkward Eva drifts about confounding the people she encounters. She adopts, or buys, or something a little boy in America, then returns to England to drift around some more.
She has some sort of malign influence on the people she encounte...more
She has some sort of malign influence on the people she encounte...more
Hands down, the most interesting, challenging and engagingly original work of fiction I've read this year. Bowen is a commanding and angry writer, defying stereotypes and blatantly and stubbornly defends human ambiguities with gross exaggerations that one is left to nod in agreement: We're all weird, and I'm weird.
Perhaps this is Elizabeth Bowen's Wasteland, literary allusions tattered and torn after lifetime of living in Elsinore. A cluttered, doomed reflection of life lived as "the shadow of the waxwing slain in the false azure of the window pane"?
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Jul 29, 2011
Sara
marked it as to-read
70 shortlisted for booker prize
Dec 12, 2010
Marian
marked it as to-read
mentioned in a gail godwin piece in nyt
Women have come a long way since Eva Trout. I wish Eva would have lived in more contemporary society, such a tragedy.
May 23, 2013
Ema
marked it as next-300
May 22, 2013
Meagan
marked it as to-read
May 21, 2013
Deepali
marked it as to-read
May 17, 2013
Leah
marked it as to-read
May 13, 2013
Abby Squire
marked it as to-read
May 13, 2013
Mickslibrarian
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen, CBE was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer.
More about Elizabeth Bowen...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
updated Apr 13, 2013 05:35am