The Last September--Elizabeth Bowen

I'm trying to read more fiction of a challenging variety. Great(er) Books than usual mysteries, romance, and light fiction and non-fiction.

So when the paperback stacks at LPL included some Elizabeth Bowen, I picked it up.

Overall, this was just an okay read--it takes place in Ireland in 1920, right before the Irish militias drove the well-to-do British landowners out. The setting is a house party given by Sir Richard Naylor and his wife, who represent old school colonialism. They are the guardians of Lois, a young girl of 19 or 20 who is aware that change is forthcoming. In between, the same things that always happen at house parties happen--someone hogs the raspberries, people write indiscriminate letters, try to get engaged, wander around playing croquet, blah, blah. Bowen does a really cool job of showing the insulation of her characters, but breaking it up with details of the turmoil that's boiling around the party, like having the news that a cache of guns was dug up nearby being mentioned at lunch, and the dance that the younger girls attend with the British Army officers in the area. It piques my curiosity about Irish history, but it makes a dull book.

This book was made into a movie about 10 years ago that was well-received, and is available on Netflix.

Meanwhile, any suggestions for February's book? I was trying to read The Human Stain for a while, but gave up due to the overwrought, breathless pace of Roth's writing--it reminded me of Portnoy's Complaint, and not in a good way.