Product Description

When eleven-year-old Henrietta arrives at the Fishers’ well-appointed house in Paris, she is prepared to spend her day between trains looked after by an old friend of her grandmother’s. Henrietta longs to see a few sights in the foreign city; little does she know what fascinating secrets the Fisher house itself contains.
For Henrietta finds that her visit coincides with that of Leopold, an intense child who has come to Paris to be introduced to the mother he has never known. In the course of a single day, the relations between Leopold, Henrietta’s agitated hostess Naomi Fisher, Leopold’s mysterious mother, his dead father, and the dying matriarch in bed upstairs, come to light slowly and tantalizingly. And when Henrietta leaves the house that evening, it is in possession of the kind of grave knowledge usually reserved only for adults. One of Elizabeth Bowen’s most artful and psychologically acute novels, The House in Paris is a timeless masterpiece of nuance and atmosphere, and represents the very best of Bowen’s celebrated oeuvre.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #185543 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-09
• Released on: 2002-04-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780385721257
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Library Journal
This 1935 novel is considered among Bowen's best. Eleven-year-old Henrietta is visting the Fisher family in Paris. The character of the city, however, has nothing on the characters inside the residence, including Leopold, a child; his unusual mother; a dead father who has as much presence as any of the living; and an old man dying in bed. There's something dark about the goings-on here, which Henrietta learns firsthand.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
?Her most atmospheric book . . . very eerie and richly descriptive.? ?Daily Telegraph (London)

?Bowen has flashes of the authentic Jamesian subtlety . . . [and] her own disturbing, searching presentation of complex human relationships. . . . Strikingly terse and original.? ?The Christian Science Monitor

?A compelling story, inspired with a deep insight into human nature.? ?Times Literary Supplement (London) -- Review

Review
“Her most atmospheric book . . . very eerie and richly descriptive.” –Daily Telegraph (London)

“Bowen has flashes of the authentic Jamesian subtlety . . . [and] her own disturbing, searching presentation of complex human relationships. . . . Strikingly terse and original.” –The Christian Science Monitor

“A compelling story, inspired with a deep insight into human nature.” –Times Literary Supplement (London)

Customer Reviews

This book is inspiring and thought provoking.
The House in Paris is about making choices.

It starts by introducing the reader to 11 year old Henrietta who passes through the House in Paris while on her way to visit her Grandmother in Mentone. We are later introduced to Leopold. He is a nine year old boy, going to visit his mother in the House in Paris, whom he has never met. The house belongs to Madame Fisher and her daughter Naomi.

The story then goes backwards, we find out how Leopold came to be. His mother had a tryst with Max while being engaged to someone else. Leopold's Father Max was Naomi's Fiance, whom he would have married had he not killed himself. I will not give the ending away, but the threads of the story come together and everyone has a connection to the house. Bowen's descriptive style of writing is evident throughout the chapters. I can guarantee readers that they won't want to put this book down. You wish the story wouldn't end.

Between Romance and Convention
Magnificent! An altogether more mature novel than The Last September, leaner and richer at the same time. It is one of those books one wants simultaneously to speed through for the sake of the plot, and to linger over for the elegance and economy of the author's style and acuteness of her psychological insights. The Anchor edition serves it ill, I fear, by printing the revealing but otherwise excellent essay by A.S. Byatt as a preface rather than afterword, and by implying on the back jacket that the narrative is focused on the child Henrietta who, though brought to brilliant life, turns out to be a peripheral character. So one is at first confused by the shifts in viewpoint and authorial tone which are one of Bowen's strengths. And her subtlety in teasing out questions of personal identity between the competing powers of romance and convention is a delight from start to finish.

The Moment before Adulthood
This is a charming saga of young Henrietta, 11, on her trip through Paris, changing trains and sent to stay with a grandmother's friend. She finds herself in the middle of a classic family drama involving Leopold, another child also at the house who turns out to be the love-child of a yound woman who lived there during a Paris stay some years ago. As the family's pathetic attempt to cover this up unravels, Henrietta--who is at that Carol Gilligan moment of moral clarity before sexual motives unfold in her own experience--finds out for herself what motivates the adults in the House.

A surprising ending occurs, that some of you will like in this book primarily about women, and others will find a deus ex machina.