The last of September
The last September (original title: The last September ) is a novel by the Anglo-Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen , which was first published in 1929. The German translation was published in 2002 by Verlag Schöffling & Co. A film adaptation based on a script by John Banville starring Maggie Smith , Michael Gambon and Jane Birkin was released in 1999.
action
The novel is set in September 1920, the time of the Irish War of Independence . The focus is on the life of an aristocratic family belonging to the Protestant upper class on their country estate in Danielstown in County Tipperary . Sir Richard Naylor, his wife, their nineteen-year-old niece Lois and their nephew Laurence try to carry on their usual life, which mainly consists of maintaining a feudal sociability. Various guests, the Montmorency couple and the young Englishwoman Marda Norton visit Danielstown. The political upheavals, which are ignored if possible, are particularly visible in the figure of British Lieutenant Gerald Lesworth, with whom Lois falls in love. Gerald is the prototype of the idealistic officer, "he believed in the Empire," as it is said at one point. Lois is insecure, she longs for change in an unclear way, but still feels that she belongs to the Danielstown estate and the way of life for which the house stands. The mentality differences between the English and the Anglo-Irish are made transparent in an ironic way. Eventually Gerald dies in an attack by the IRA , Danielstown goes up in flames a few months later.
background
The novel has clear autobiographical traits. The portrayal of the Danielstown manor is based on Bowen's Court , the house in which the author grew up. In contrast to Danielstown, however, this house remained undamaged during the Revolutionary War, although it was later sold and demolished. In addition to the description of the “big house”, which plays a leading role in various respects, the unresolved question of national identity is a recurring motive: the Naylors are on the sidelines, they take sides neither entirely for the British nor the Irish side.
“ Bowen's Court survived - yet I have seen it burn in my mind so often that the last terrible event last September is more real than anything I really experienced. "
reception
“ As is so often the case with Elizabeth Bowen, internal processes and decisive external events find an artistic correspondence in the landscape depictions. The author has evoked the extinction of a world that is no longer viable with an elegiac urgency reminiscent of Cechov . "
expenditure
- Elizabeth Bowen: The last September . New edition Cape Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-224-02997-5 .
- Elizabeth Bowen: The last of September. Roman ("The last September"). New edition Rowohlt, Reinbek 2004, ISBN 3-499-23636-2 (translated by Sigrid Ruschmeier).
literature
- Hermione Lee : Elizabeth Bowen. Portrait of a Writer ("Elizabeth Bowen"). Publishing house Schöffling, Frankfurt / M. 2001, ISBN 3-89561-607-9 .
- Elsemarie Maletzke : Elizabeth Bowen. A biography . Publishing house Schöffling, Frankfurt / M. 2008, ISBN 978-3-89561-610-5 .
- Dominique Nicolas: The last September by Elizabeth Bowen or A Chronicle of a Foreshadowed Death . In: Patricia Lynch u. a .: Back to the present, forward to the past. Irish Writing and History since 1798 . Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam 2006, ISBN 978-90-420-2036-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kindlers Literature Lexicon . Vol. IV. Licensed edition, Zweiburgen Verlag, Weinheim, 1984 p. 5506