Derek Collett's Blog: Books and More

I wanted to read this book for three reasons. Firstly, because I began reading it in the late-1990s, only to abandon it after about 40 pages. Secondly, because Anthony Burgess included it in his survey ‘Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Since 1939’; although many of his choices are perplexing to me, the Burgess stamp of approval is clearly not a bad one to have. Finally, Elizabeth Bowen reviewed most of Nigel Balchin’s books during his best period (1942–1955), almost always in glowing terms. For example, she said that Balchin “Never lets the reader down” and observed in 1949 that “Probably no other novelist of Mr. Balchin’s value is so eminently and enjoyably readable.” As a Balchin fan, as well as his biographer, I thought it would be nice to repay the compliment on Balchin’s behalf by praising Bowen’s work.

But I was in trouble almost as soon as I opened the covers of ‘The Heat of the Day’ for a second time and could see exactly why I had aborted it so early on the first time. My first difficulty concerned the writing. Burgess said that it is “sharp” and “elegant”. I thought I knew what sharp, elegant writing looked like and it never looked anything like this. Was it maybe Bowen’s Irish ancestry that made her consistently write sentences where one of the words always seems to be in the wrong place? Do the Irish write like that? I’ve read novels by other Irish writers in recent years and never felt such a strong inclination to get my red pen out to make amendments as I did with this book. Then there are the sprawling, sub-clause-ridden Proustian sentences which are so ugly to look at on the page and, more importantly, often quite difficult to understand: a great many of them left me scratching my bald head in puzzlement and exasperation.

All this wouldn’t matter so much if the story Bowen was telling was a good one. But it isn’t. Not by any means. It moves along at a desultory pace and the only incidents with any dramatic merit happen off-stage, robbing the hard-put-upon reader of some compensatory pleasure after battling through page after page of Bowen’s turgid prose. The characters are almost all utterly unsympathetic and the few that are not only appear fleetingly. There are admittedly some good comic exchanges involving some of the minor characters but these cannot compensate for the tediousness of much of Bowen’s material. The so-called ‘spy story’ that is supposedly at the core of the novel is an exceptionally damp squib, one barely worthy of that designation. I also think that Bowen suffered from a fault that she shares with certain other female novelists (Elizabeth Jane Howard is one who springs to mind): she concentrates so much effort on what her characters are thinking and feeling that it tends to completely overwhelm the narrative and slow it down to snail’s pace. Virginia Woolf has, I think, a lot to answer for here… Before I incur the wrath of the feminists, I should stress that not all female novelists suffer from this perceived fault but I should also point out that male writers, in general, tend to stick more to the point and to value action and character above description of thoughts and feelings. In my humble opinion, that’s a good thing.

What really disappointed me above all else about ‘The Heat of the Day’ was the recreation of the wartime experience, which is where I thought this book was supposed to excel. Burgess again: “No novel has better caught the atmosphere of London during the Second World War. Elizabeth Bowen conveys that drab suffering world in such intense and credible detail that it conjures sensuous and emotional memories (in any reader who knew that time and place) so heightened that one seems to be re-living them.” Well you could have fooled me! I’m nowhere near elderly enough to have lived through the Second World War but I’ve read much better depictions of wartime London than this one. There is one chapter that opens with a well-written description of the period and some good incidental details creep in from time to time. But, to my mind, Balchin conveyed that world much more vividly in Darkness Falls from the Air and, importantly, his novel is far more alive and infinitely more readable than Bowen’s.

‘The Heat of the Day’ was therefore a grave disappointment to me and I only ploughed on right to the bitter end in order to be able to tick off another of Burgess’s recommended reads in my battered copy of his book. My thirty-something self was right to have stopped after a couple of chapters: if only I’d had the sense to have done the same thing this time around…

Apropos of the work of her fellow novelist Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Jane Howard once observed 'How deeply I envy any reader coming to her for the first time'. This is how I feel about the writing of two novelists whose work I have recently begun to explore.

Alexander Baron wrote fourteen novels; to date I have read just one, There's No Home, but very much enjoyed it and so now have thirteen more (hopefully equally as good) to look forward to.

Geoffrey Household was more prolific, racking up 33 works of fiction during his long career. So far, I have devoured five of his offerings, four of which I would thoroughly recommend (not a bad hit rate).

I am therefore now faced with the deliciously enticing prospect of wading my way through the rest of the two men's oeuvres over the course of the next couple of years. I am sure there will be disappointments along the way (as was the case some years ago when I was steadily working my way through the work of Eric Ambler and Nigel Balchin) but let's hope they will be outweighed by the potential delight of making more exciting new discoveries such as Rogue Male, There's No Home and A Rough Shoot.