well ahead." That ellipsis is the gap through which along Anglo-Irish history falls: the issue is raised, as so often in Bowen, only to be turned from, but in a way that makes it in some ways all the more insistent, with the insistence of the hauntingly irretrievable. Maud Ellmann also illustrates: "The narrative also cocoons itself, in the sense that most events occur offstage, as in Greek tragedy." A number of the conversations in the novel are full of pauses, unfinished sentences or awkward silence. The conversation that takes place between Gerald and Laurence about civilisation and its meaning eptomises how the meaning happens in interruptions and pauses which are not actual words. Just like Ellmann's analogy of the Greek tragedy where action takes place outside stage, the meaning in The Last September happens in ellipsis. The burning of Danielstown The novel ends with the conflagration of Danielstown. But readers are not surprised by this eventful incendiary as the narrative foreshadows this ineluctable ending. Laurence predicts the burning of Danielstown: "But I should like something else to happen, some crude intrusion of the actual. I feel all gassy inside from yawning. I should like to be here when this house burns." The Montmorencys are contemplating building a bungalow but Lady Naylor rebuffs this idea: "Don't be silly – Besides, according to that friend of the Trents, it would be blown up or burnt in a month or two." This ending refers to the IRA practice of destroying country houses in Ireland between 1919 and 1923. Film adaptation A film version was released in 1999. John Banville wrote the screenplay, from which Yvonne Thunder produced and Deborah Warner directed. Zbigniew Preisner provided the music and Slawomir Idziak provided the cinematography. The film stars Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Keeley Hawes, David Tennant, Lambert Wilson, Jane Birkin, and Fiona Shaw. Notes Sources Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royale: Elizabeth Bowen and the Dissolution of the Novel. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. Bowen, Elizabeth. The Last September. 1929. New York: Anchor Books, 2000. ---. “Preface to The Last September.” Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood & Afterthoughts: Pieces on Writing. New York: Knopf, 1962. Corcoran, Neil: Elizabeth Bowen: the Enforced Return. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2004. Ellmann, Maud: Elizabeth Bowen: The Shadow Across the Page. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2003. Hoogland, Renee C.: Elizabeth Bowen: A Reputation in Writing. New York: New York UP,