Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles - 1943

Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles - 1943


Born: 22 February 1917, New York, New York, United States
Died: 4 May 1973, Málaga, Spain

Published when she was twenty six to an initial luke warm reception by baffled critics, Two Serious Ladies is now viewed by many, myself included, as a work of genius, if a fey one.

As you might guess, it centers on two ladies, back in 1943 being called a “lady” still carried connotations of gentility and refinement.  Part of the deeper theme, as I see it, of Two Serious Ladies, is a presentation of an unraveling of this facade. It is set  in Colon, Panama during a far from undecided World War. Colon is described as “full of nothing but half breeds and monkeys”.  Here one of two serious ladies, Frieda Copperfield, dumps her respectable but boring husband in favour of a teenage prostitute, Pacifica.  She ends up happily, sort of, living with her in a hotel full of the throw offs of Europe looking for an escape from the old world.

As the novel opens we meet other serious lady Christina Goering (I wonder if in 1943 this name brought to mind a then high ranking German or was it a coincidence).  Christina’s father is, we are lead to think, a wealthy American industrialist.  The two women have their own plot lines that do not converge until near the end.  Both women Love to insult others.  There is heavy drinking for sure.  Nobody is sober for long if they can help it.

The treatment of prostitution between Freida and Pacifica is very interesting, female to female sex trade is even now not much written about.  Everyone in Colon has something wrong with them.

The potrait of the residents of Colon may strike many as insensitive.  Terms like “half breed” and “monkeys” need to be fitted into novel and The time.

I read this in My Sister’s Hand in Mine: The Collected Works of Jane Bowles.  There are brief articles by Joy Williams and Truman Capote.  Capote was a close friend of Jane and her husband and offers very interesting memories. Joy Williams was given the  collection by her mother, first published in 1966, when she was sixteen and dreamed of being a writer.   She shares with us her first reaction:

“I did not know what to make of this object at all. There was no discernible narrative strategy. There was no way of explaining or analyzing the processes at work. Interpretation was useless. The vistas were dispiriting, the food foul, the wind always howling. Her people were mournful, impulsive, and as erratic in their peculiar journeys’ flights as bats. They were very often drunk. They thought continuously, obsessively, but had no thoughts exactly, no helpful method of perceiving the world or their positions in it. As Miss Goering, one of the serious ladies, remarks just before committing herself to an unsavory adventure.”


There are six Short Stories and several  fragments and a play in the collection.  Truman Capote says her best work is the story, “Camp Cataract” and I hope to read it soon.

There is a concise bio of Jane Bowles at Paulbowles.org




“Jane Bowles's total body of work consists of one novel, one play, and six short stories. Yet John Ashbery said of her: "It is to be hoped that she will be recognized for what she is: one of the finest modern writers of fiction in any language." Tennessee Williams called her the most underrated writer of fiction in American literature. During her lifetime and since her death in 1973, she has been considered a writer's writer, little known to the general public but with a loyal following of intensely devoted readers. “ from Paulbowles.com. By Millicent Dillon

I highly recommend Millicent Dillon’s introduction to The Library of America edition of The Works of Jane Bowles

https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/1238-millicent-dillon-the-originality-and-emotional-power-of-jane-bowles

I have not seen The L O A edition, it has works not in The FSG collection, but no published works just fragments and letters.At $7.95 for the Kindle edition by FSG versus $30.00 for the hard back LOA, go for the Kindle.


Jane Bowles lives on in hearts of her readers, sadly to most just Mrs. Paul Bowles.

Mel u

"Everything is Nice" by Jane Bowles

"Everything is Nice" by Jane Bowles

my prior post on Jane Bowles -contains background data

As far as I can find, up until yesterday you could not read any of the work of Jane Bowles online.  My main purpose in this post is to let people know they can now read, for free, one of her magnificent short stories online. 

As the story opens, in a "Blue Muslim town" a Muslim woman starts a conversation with a Nazarene woman she does not know.  It is a small town with a mixed population of Muslims and Christians.  The Muslim woman asks the other where she is going.  She shows the Muslim woman a porcupine she is taking to her aunt, country people eat them we learn.   There is no big plot action in the story, nothing really happens but two women of different cultures see more of their similarities than they once did.  

I really recommend this story.   

Mel u

"Emmy Moore's Journal" by Jane Bowles

"Emmy Moore's Journal" by Jane Bowles (1973, 21 pages)

Jane Bowles

1917 to 1973

Jane Bowles, wife of Paul Bowles, was born in New York.  She published her only novel, Two Serious Ladies in 1943. She also wrote a play that was produced on Broadway, In The Summer House. She published  twenty short stories.   She moved to Tangiers with Paul Bowles in 1948.    While in Tangiers she is said to have had very intense relationships with a Moroccan woman and the famous torch singer Libby Holman.   She  was an alcoholic   Here is a quote from the book description of My Sister's Hand:  The Complete Works of Jane Bowles

Paul and Jane Bowles

"Though she wrote only one novella, one short play, and fewer than a dozen short stories over a roughly twenty-year span from the early 1940s to the mid-1960s, Jane Bowles has long been regarded by critics as one of the premier stylists of her generation. Enlivened at unexpected moments by sexual exploration, mysticism, and flashes of wit alternately dry and hilarious, her prose is spare and honed, her stories filled with subtly sly characterizations of men and, mostly, women, dissatisfied not so much with the downward spiral of their fortunes as with the hollowness of their neat little lives."

I confess I had never heard of her until I saw her name in the anthology, Object Lesson:  The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story.  When I saw that Linda Davis greatly admired her work I was very happy to be presented with my first opportunity to read her work.   After reading the introduction of Davis I would say I would love to have had the opportunity to take a class in the short story from her.

I really love "Emmy Moore's Journal".   It is a partially autobiographical story about a woman who wants to join her husband.   The story is told in the first person and the woman's observations transcend the merely amazing, some are very accurate some make little sense as we she her thin grip on reality.  She has odd attitudes about Turkish women as somehow very exotic and feminine.  How things change as I suspect most Americans, the woman refers to herself as an American, would not list Turkish women as especially exotic.  There is little I can say about this story that Davis has not already said much better.   There is a letter to her husband (named "Paul") that is a classic.   It also shows the orientalizing in the mind of Emma of Asian women.  Here is what she says about herself "I am so wily and feminine that I could live by your side for a lifetime and deceive you afresh each day".   Femininity is equated with deception and uses the power tactics of the weak against their masters.

There is much more in this wonderful story.  Sadly none of her work, as far as I could find, can be read online.  My thanks Linda Davis for picking it.   

If you have read Jane Bowles (or Paul, who I will post on soon as this story made me curious about him) please share your experiences with us.

Mel u
The Reading Life