“When her editor questioned some of the contortions, Bowen replied: ‘I’d rather keep the jars, “jingles” and awkwardnesses – e.g. “seemed unseemly,” “felt to falter”. They do to my mind express something. In some cases I want the rhythm to jerk or jar – to an extent, even, which may displease the reader.’” (from Maud Ellmann, Elizabeth Bowen: The Shadow Across the Page, 166, note 57: Letter to Daniel George, 2 June 1948, HRHRC)
Mss letter to Daniel George, in Princeton "Milberg Misc. Mss." file, 18.4.49: “I wondered if I’d been a bit harsh of Angus Wilson, but I hate noisy “strong” writing, and also still more writing that’s a discharge of decaying matter from the system. I felt A.W. was intelligent enough to merit a rap. And that Sean O’F., who to my mind as a reviewer resembles an old nanny-goat teetering over a rock garden, just as much as he’s an eagle, at his best, in stories and novels, more than makes up to A.W. for my deficiencies.”
The relevant passages from The Heat of the Day:
à Pg. 11: “Lest this be too subtle, his tone was unkind enough to drive at least his will to unkindness home – it did: she withdrew from the pocket her other hand in order to, self-protectively, fold her arms. She could be felt to falter behind the barricade; and the programme, let go of by her as though incriminated, fluttered to the ground.” (passage at concert, goes on to musicians’ “black, seated bodies had fastened to them the faces and hands of ghosts”
à Pg. 236: But this evening for Louie had rung the knell of Harrison, man of mystery, as a subject…It seemed unseemly, even, that his companion should have claimed for him the prerogative of pain: Louie simultaneously felt he could never suffer and wished he might.”
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