Two Serious Ladies had been on my to-read list for quite a long time, and when I saw this cute edition at
Greedy Reads in Baltimore I decided maybe now was the moment. This is a strange book about two upper class women friends who, separately (I mention this because given the title I somehow assumed they would do it together) run away from or escape from the life that society has prescribed for them. On a trip to Panama with her husband, Mrs. Copperfield moves herself into a hotel that is essentially a brothel and forms a strong attachment to one of the residents. Meanwhile in or near New York, Miss Goering sells her large home and moves with her irritable companion, Miss Gamelon, and Arthur, a man she met at a party, to a small unheated home on an island near the city (I wondered if it was Staten Island? Or just some made up place). After a while she abandons these two for a man she meets in a grubby bar in a town on the mainland (New Jersey?), and she subsequently abandons him for a mobster-type who assumes she's a prostitute and doesn't believe her when she denies she is one.
I know a little about Jane and Paul Bowles' life and I couldn't help wondering if the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Copperfield was a reflection of them. On their travels, Mr. Copperfield is intent on avoiding the places that attract tourists and going deeper and deeper into unknown territory. When we last see him, he is learning about Central America considering moving on to a remote cow farm in Costa Rica.
I'm not sure what to think about this book. The women at the center of it seem desperate to create a new mode of existence for themselves, but but also unable to find any happiness in it as they test their own boundaries. The book is at times quite funny, but also rather grim.
