Two Serious Ladies (Peter Owen Modern Classic) Paperback – 26 August 2003

As I started this novel, I was put in mind of Daisy Ashford's "Young Visiters", with its comically unapposite exchanges betwen characters. Continuing to read, I came to be more reminded as an inferior version of Leonora Carrington.It began as intriguing and entertaining, following the first of our 'serious ladies' - well to do Christina Goering, a strange, unlikeable child with a penchant for extreme and outrageous religious activities. The book follows her into adulthood, living with an entirely incompatible female companion, and with a male acquaintance (and his parents.) And then she moves to an island...The second lady is merely a fairlty distant acquaintance of Miss Goering; Mrs Copperfield accompanies her husband to Panama, where she embarks on a reltionship with a local lady of dubious repute...There are odd paragraphs of quite clever writing, but as the implausible and incomprehensible events unroll, page after page, I became SO bored!

The story in this book is just bizarre and make little sense. An easy read though

the prose is plain and delightfully straightforward. no flowery elegance or self-conscious displays of literary "importance." just a really really funny, outrageous story about some rich maniacs.i've never read a book quite like this one. WHY aren't there more writers like this???

This was a revelation to me. It's a hilarious, sophisticated, and a has just a hint of raunchiness about it. An ingenious study of some very off key characters. The indifferent eccentricity of the two titular characters might be off putting to some but this is not inaccessible stuff. Much more charming then her husband, a much lighter, more ironic and humane touch. And short! Can't recommend it enough.

Strange and good read. Even today the writing seems very modern and timeless. I like the kind of dreamy atmosphere allowing for surprising events to take place. I definitely recommend it very much.

I was so pleased this was a kindle daily deal - because my paperback is absolutely ratty! I first read this book when I was at Uni and have read it many times over. The first time I read it I didn't quite understand it but it mesmerised me instantly. Jane Bowle's style is amazing. Circles and circles of unusual relationships, queer people, exotic places, perfect sentences, subtle humour all form this authentic masterpiece.With wit, candour and more than a touch of the bizarre, Two Serious Ladies follows the demise into debauchery of two very different yet equally stiff, serious women, who aquire a fondness for the eccentric. Christina Goering - rich spinster - turns high class call girl, whilst Frieda Copperfield - caught in a respectable, though boring marriage - abandons her husband for Pacifica, a Panamanian prostitute. It's all utterly bizarre and way a head of its time!Once read, it will stay in your mind. Why do these women behave as they do?, what is Bowles triying to tell us? It's all crypt. You can read it and read it all over again and again and your conclusions will change. Whatever your conclusion, you will surmise that this is true literary genius.