Friends and Relations

FRIENDS AND RELATIONS, of all Elizabeth Bowen's novels, is perhaps the most personal and the most domestic. This is a view of life in a moneyed upper-middle class enjoying its sunset of prosperity, security and complacency - and by no means free from triviality. But its very narrowness is rich in comedy, and it enables Elizabeth Bowen to create two of her most memorable characters - Lady Elfrida, a creature of privilege, and Theodora Thirdman, the gawky and obtrusive adolescent who carries her emotionalism into adult life.