Grow up Portia: The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen published 1938 This picture is Boredom, 1935 Alexander Deineka – I don’t believe Portia would have worn such a low-cut dress, BUT her elbows feature a surprising amount in the book, and there are several mentions like this one: ‘Portia nursing her elbows as though they had been a couple of loved cats’ I very much enjoyed a recent re-read of Friends and Relations by Elizabeth Bowen I liked it much more than I remembered and found a lot to talk about. So on to this, one of her better-known ones, and I think a great favourite of many people. [As it happens, the writer Laura Thompson has also been reading this book, and I strongly recommend her Substack post on it: she feels much as I did about the book, so is plainly correct in her views, here… The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth BowenLaura Thompson wrote excellent books on two of my favourite topics, Agatha Christie and the Mitford family] Death of the Heart tells the story of 16-year-old…