hmdpublishing

hmdpublishing.bsky.social

12 October 2026 16:58

Honestly, procrastinating with literary criticism is just research. Right?

What A Charming House

whatacharminghouse.bsky.social

12 October 2026 16:58

I think Bowen’s real is the very unreal (to others) of what happens when the brain connects one sense to another. All her strangeness of style was the landscape she saw and transcribed, and left us to disentangle, but also share in her experience.

What A Charming House

whatacharminghouse.bsky.social

12 October 2026 16:57

Tho he used it differently. He translated the synaesthesic experience as narrative madness. Bowen, I believe, was in a sense quite mimetic with regards to the synaesthete’s world. As Osborn says, “mimesis tempts the intellect into believing that what is copied is the extent of the real.”

What A Charming House

whatacharminghouse.bsky.social

12 October 2026 16:57

I think that could be why critics I’ve read haven’t pinned it on Bowen. Bowen presents a world where objects, landscapes, and the very light are suffused with emotions and sensations that don’t make literal sense. #Poe, who was definitely neurodivergent, did the same.

What A Charming House

whatacharminghouse.bsky.social

12 October 2026 16:57

Bowen, like #VirginiaWoolf, was criticized for her style. Woolf in particular was called out for her outmoded stylistic use of synaesthesia . I believe Woolf was actually synaesthesic, though her use of it, as in Mrs. Dalloway, is more nakedly apparent than Bowen’s.