characteristic of Bowen since the opening scene of her first novel The Hotel: Bowen’s novels are always already finished, stilled, from and by the opening of her first novel. Bowen’s novels are still lives. Any reading which can occur beyond this opening is a supplementary reading of the impossible mobilities contained within, but not by, the thought of catatonia. Bowen’s ten novels will be haunted by this opening, by the paradox of a catatonic thought-stoppage, and by the paradox that the novels are already finished, stilled by such a thought. "In those days" and "cancelled time", Lois, the heroine, believes that she lives in a cocoon: "I might as well be in some kind of cocoon." This frozen, "intransitive" and nebulous imagery is linked with Lois throughout the novel: "She was lonely, and saw there was no future. She shut her eyes and tried – as sometimes when she was seasick, locked in misery between Holyhead and Kingstown – to be enclosed in nonentity, in some ideal no-place perfect and clear as a bubble." National identity The Anglo-Irish society seems nonplussed with its loyalty. It is not determined whether to be loyal to Ireland or England. This seems to be the source of its dilemma. The ultimate example is presented in Lois locked between Holyhead [Wales] and Kingstown [Ireland] in "nonentity", belonging to neither place. Ellmann elucidates: The trouble in this country is the other plot, most of which transpires behind the scenes, while the love plot dominates the stage. Yet both are stories of paralysis: Lois Farquar, the central character, fails to fall in love with any of the men available, just as the Naylors fail to take sides in the struggle that decides their fate. Both plots conclude in disengagement, romantic in the one case, political in the other. In Elizabeth Bowen: A Reputation in Writing, Renee C. Hoogland expounds how the relationship between the Irish and the Anglo-Irish is doomed: The sense of dislocation Laurence and Lois have in common is placed at the center of the narrative by being reflected in the novel's sociohistorical setting, metaphorically foregrounded by the violence of the Troubles. Indicative of the gulf dividing the Anglo-Irish from the native Irish, this war will eventually lead to the destruction of the colonizing power of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry, of the Ascendency itself, and of the way of life it still barely upholds. Founded