Strengths and weaknesses in the Jamesian Death of the Heart

Is Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart (1938) a great novel? Well, on the plus side it's obvious from the first page that Bowen is writing serious fiction, albeit of a limited scope - a domestic drama about a troubled highly prosperous London family. At her best, some of the depictions of various moments in time and space - e.g., a winter walk around the lakes in Regents Park - are of the highest order. I'd guess her major influence and perhaps favorite write was Henry James, and therein lies the problem. First of all she has no ear for dialog; her characters sound like a highly intelligent narrator, but the things they say to each other and their manner of speaking rings entirely false: In the first chapter a 30-something woman, Anna, narrates basically her entire life history to her friend, St. Quentin (yes, that's his name!), and we have to think: Why is Bowen telling this through dialog, or actually monologue? Other scenes seem equally stilted and false, notably the long conversation between the teenage Portia and the house servant, Matchett. It's all so bookish, and not credible as narrative. Second, Bowen does adopt the stance of an omniscient 3rd-person narrator, there are times, when she's trying to explain the nuances of the thoughts and emotions of one of the characters, that I literally cannot understand what she's saying. Her writing can be impenetrable and abstract, like James at his worst. That said, her obvious intelligence keeps my hopes and interest alive. Over the course of the narration she builds our interest in and concern for the young Portia, a woman w/ terrible judgment living among those w/ no respect for privacy - despite their excruciatingly nuanced British "manners" - they think nothing of seizing this teenager's diary and letters she received, for no good reason; Portia has given them no reason to be seriously concerned about her safety or well-being. But we're concerned, given the vipers she lives among, especially the 23-year-old Edde - 7 years her senior - who purports to be in love w/ her but is mainly in love w/ himself, and maybe hoping to "marry up." What are we to make of his telling her that he's very handsome, or his getting her to entrust him w/ her diary for fear that others may read it? He's a horrible person and she's too young to know that - reason enough to keep reading.