Jane Bowles

"Two serious ladies who want to live outside of themselves, Christina Goering and Frieda Copperfield embark on separate quests of salvation. Mrs. Copperfield visits Panama with her husband, where she finds solace among the women who live and work in its brothels. Miss Goering becomes involved with various men. At the end the two women meet again, each transformed by her experience."--Publisher description

Two Serious Ladies

“Even then she worse the look of certain fanatics who think of themselves as leaders without once having gained the respect of a single human being”

The beginning was so strong — strange and immediately unsettling. There was something cultic in the early mood and I was hooked on that. 

Yet as the narrative begins to unfold, the initial intensity dissolves into something quite disorienting. The novel kind of felt like the glare of headlights when you’re driving, never quite sure what’s approaching you. Relationships form, and die, with an unnatural speed. The novel rarely seems to linger long enough to convince me of it’s emotional reality and instead produces this peculiar sense that the novel in not interested in people but in types. The figures Bowles creates are exaggerated and faintly theatrical, thus allowing settings function more as backdrops than lived environments. 

Consequently, the novel feels ironical in its titular seriousness. Nothing real ever seems at stake to these characters. It’s not necessarily a failure and there is something compelling in Bowles’ ability to sustain an estranged hovering tone. However, one finished the book with the sense of not knowing these people and instead they have poorly performed. 

g.m.

“Even then she worse the look of certain fanatics who think of themselves as leaders without once having gained the respect of a single human being”

The beginning was so strong — strange and immediately unsettling. There was something cultic in the early mood and I was hooked on that. 


Yet as the narrative begins to unfold, the initial intensity dissolves into something quite disorienting. The novel kind of felt like the glare of headlights when you’re driving, never quite sure what’s approaching you. Relationships form, and die, with an unnatural speed. The novel rarely seems to linger long enough to convince me of it’s emotional reality and instead produces this peculiar sense that the novel in not interested in people but in types. The figures Bowles creates are exaggerated and faintly theatrical, thus allowing settings function more as backdrops than lived environments. 


Consequently, the novel feels ironical in its titular seriousness. Nothing real ever seems at stake to these characters. It’s not necessarily a failure and there is something compelling in Bowles’ ability to sustain an estranged hovering tone. However, one finished the book with the sense of not knowing these people and instead they have poorly performed. 