A View of the Harbour

by Elizabeth Taylor

Other authorsRoxana Robinson (Introduction)
Paperback, 2015

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Collection

Publication

NYRB Classics (2015), Edition: Reprint, 321 pages

Description

""Are we to go on until we are old, with just these odd moments here and there and danger always so narrowly evaded? Love draining away our vitality, our hold on life, never adding anything to us." Blindness and betrayal are Elizabeth Taylor's great subjects, and in A View of the Harbour she turns her unsparing gaze on the emotional and sexual politics of a seedy seaside town that's been left behind by modernity. Tory, recently divorced, is having an affair with her neighbor Robert, a doctor, whose wife, Beth, is Tory's best friend. Beth notices nothing--an author of melodramatic novels, she is too busy with them to mind her house or its inhabitants--but her daughter Prudence knows what is up and is appalled. Gossip spreads in the little community, and Taylor's view widens to take in a range of characters from senile, snoopy Mrs. Bracey; to a young, widowed proprietor of the local waxworks, Lily Wilson; to the would-be artist Bertram. Taylor's novel is a beautifully observed and written examination of the fictions around which we construct our lives and manage our losses"--… (more)

Media reviews

Wings - The Literary Guild Review
This is another book like The Tamarack Tree and Give Us Our Dream where the threads of a number of lives are woven together to make a unified whole. The setting of the book is a tiny harbor town in England, and the fascinating story is concerned with family and with human relationships, especially
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between men and women. The characters are of all ages, ranging from a young child to an old woman, everyone a masterpiece of delineation. Quite aside from the sureness of Mrs. Taylor's characterization, and a plot which is absorbed in how a selfish and attractive woman can work havoc on all around her, the book is studded with wonderful comments and observations on life and people. It is clever, apt and feminine in every sense of that word.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member brenzi
We’ve all seen them: has-been sea-side resorts. They used to be THE place to go but over the years their charm has declined and their attraction has disappeared leaving behind a small populace of down on their luck, salt of the earth, hard-working people who care for each other in intimate ways.
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That’s a description of Newby, an English coastal fishing village in the years following WWII that serves as the setting of Elizabeth Taylor’s novel. It was her descriptions of this setting that initially drew me in:

”To the men on the boats the harbour was at first dingy and familiar, a row of buildings, shops, café, pub, with peeling plaster of apricot and sky blue; then as the boats steered purposefully from the harbour-mouth to sea, houses rose up in tiers, the church-tower extricated itself from the roofs, the lettering on the shops faded and the sordid became picturesque.” (Page 5)

But it was her finely tuned characterizations that really made this novel stand out and will send me scurrying to look for more of her novels. Taylor used a simple formula to produce the devastating sense of loneliness that is her main theme. The forward in my edition points out that she allowed us into the minds of her main characters and utilized small vignettes to set the stage for their dilemmas with frequent breaks to other characters. It was incredibly effective.

Many of the characters are suffering lasting effects from the war. Tory (Victoria) Foyle, a divorcee whose husband fell in love (and married) a female officer he met while serving in the war, is having an affair with the town’s doctor who just happens to be married to Tory’s best friend, Beth, a novelist who is so wrapped up in the world she is creating that she's unaware of events happening in the world that actually surrounds her. Tory’s son Edward is away at boarding school, suffering from home sickness that his mother doesn’t recognize or appreciate, and aching for his father. The widow Lily Wilson, cannot get used to the isolation being alone brings and dreads returning to her flat behind the wax museum she and her husband, lost in the war, used to run. Mrs. Bracey, bedridden and the neighborhood gossip, enthroned at her perch at her bedroom window where she:

”sat in judgment. Guilt she saw, treachery and deceit and self-indulgence. She did not see, as God might be expected to, their sensations of shame and horror, their compulsion towards one another, for which they dearly paid, nor in what danger they so helplessly stood, now, in middle-age, not in any safe harbour, but thrust out to sea with none of the brave equipment of youth to buoy them up, no romance, no delight.” (Page 208)

These three women and retired sea captain, Bertram Hemingway, are the main characters. He has arrived at the village to paint the lovely scenes that his imagination has a hard time transferring to easel because he can’t capture the shifting light. Taylor also manages to create supporting characters that are crucial to the plot and the theme. The doctor and Beth’s daughter, Prudence, adolescent and socially awkward, is important for much of the action, as are her parents. And Mrs. Bracey’s daughters, Iris and Maisie, although totally dominated by their mother, contribute to the idea that everyone is waiting for their mother to die.

Elizabeth Taylor has captured the essence of loneliness in this stunning portrait of life in a post WWII English fishing village. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member lauralkeet
'Interesting,' he observed, 'what two people can make of the same view. We all see places a bit different to what the next man does. That stands to reason. (p. 309)

Newby is an English seaside town a bit past its prime. The fishing trade has waned, and summer visitors are not as numerous as before
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the war. Taylor's imagery brings the scene to life: To the men on the boats the harbour was at first dingy and familiar, a row of buildings, shops, cafe, pub, with peeling plaster of apricot and sky blue; then as the boats steered purposefully from the harbour-mouth to the sea, houses rose up in tiers, the church-tower extricated itself from the roofs, the lettering on the shops faded and the sordid became picturesque. (p. 9)

With this backdrop, A View of the Harbour focuses on the day-to-day events and relationships of the community. Like any small town, people spend a lot of time watching one another and gossiping. Characters are presented first at a distance, as viewed through a window by a neighbor. But Taylor also transitions seamlessly to first-hand accounts of each character, bringing detail, depth and emotion to each situation. Many events play out through the perspective of Bertram, a visitor who has supposedly come to paint the scenery, but manages to insert himself into the lives of several community members. As he becomes acquainted with various people, so does the reader.

Women's friendships are a key theme in the novel. Beth, a writer and mother of two daughters, has been close friends with Tory, a vain and frivolous divorcee, since they were in school. Although these two women were close as children, now they have little in common but still turn to each other for support. And, sadly, each puts relationships with men ahead of their relationship with each other.

I love Elizabeth Taylor's writing, which so vividly evokes the shabby seaside town and the recent impact of the war on its inhabitants. And her characters are "real people," that could be found anywhere. I am looking forward to reading more by this wonderful author.
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LibraryThing member Liz1564
A year in the life of some inhabitants of the seaside town of Newby Old Town somewhere on the English coast. Taylor keeps the location vague so it could be any number of towns with a seafront which has seen tourists disappear and folks relocate to the nearby new town with its cinema, shops and
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homes with decent plumbing. The people who are left by the harbour, tradesmen and a few middle class families, are the subjects of this character-driven novel.

Nothing much seems to happen during this year. There is no great catastrophy, no life-altering event. An old woman dies, but then she has been bed-ridden for a long time. A middle-aged women relocates to London. A young woman suspects her father of having an affair.

But the reader is allowed into the heads of these ordinary characters and that is where the magic begins. Tory Foyle, the middle-age woman is having an affair with her next door neighbor who happens to be the town doctor and the husband of her very best friend. Tory is lovely and still baffled that her former husband divorced her even though she provided him with a beautiful and ordered home, good meals, and a polite son. Her affair is joyless because Robert is a dull lover and the stolen moments of passion amount to kissing in the garage and sneaking time together before he goes home next door.

The best friend Beth is an author who escapes into writing and finds her characters really more interesting than her family. She has produced one boring child who is twenly and a five year old who is manipulative. She is unaware of the infidelity right under her nose or is she? I got the impression that she chose not to "see" it because life was just more pleasant if Robert was occupied elsewhere. Then there is her daughter Prudence who seems a bit off. She is called beautiful but has no spark and, because her dad is unfaithful, she talks herself into rejecting love. Yet her favorite pastime is lying naked in bed and allowing her Siamese cats to rub against her body. Ironically she has a sort of beau who meets her in graveyards and reads her John Donne or his own really bad poetry.

And then there are the other characters, equally important. Mrs Bracey, the obese dying old woman, seems at first to be just unpleasant and a burden to her daughters. But when she muses about her childhood and remembers magical days growing up by the harbour she becomes a geniune poet who missed her calling. Her girls, sensible Maisie who runs the family second-hand clothing shop and Iris who dreams that surely one day Noel Coward or Olivier will walk into the pub and offer the beautiful barmaid a screen test, do care about their demanding, bloated mother.

Two others deserve mention. The outside observer, "artist" and retired naval officer Bertram Hemingway, fancies himself a fine painter if he can only bother to put paint to canvas. He is must more adept at kindly intruding into others lives only to leave them when he becomes bored. He has a courtly manner which charms some women, although others see him as a ridiculous old man.

Finally there is the frightened youngish widow Lily Wilson who runs the Waxworks Exhibition with no success. She is scared of the figures of the murderers, mice in the walls, and of being alone. When Bertram draws her out and then drops her, she tries to carry on by going to the pub every night for her two drinks and companionship. But the only people interested in her are a French sailor who tries to sell her illegal perfume and an old librarian who urges her away from reading Lady Audley's Secret and hands her boring biographies. An unforgettable images is of Lily dusting the insides of the Duchess of Windsor's nostrils before the exhibit opens for the season.

And because this is an Elizabeth Taylor novel there is a sense of the ridiculous. Prudence stinks up the house cooking cows' udders for her cats. Tory's sweet son describes life at school as being wonderful and then goes on to talk about bullying, falling out of trees and being afraid of having to get in a boxing ring. He signs his notes to his mother "Yours faithfully, E. Foyle!" Tory tries to squeeze Beth into a corset and dress her in stylish clothes for Beth's trip to London and the end result is that Beth is laced in so tightly that she cannot sit down! Bertram puzzles over the Mimosa cafe placard announcing "Fried God' for luncheon until he realizes that the "g" is really a fancy "c."

In fifty years, the area around the harbour in Newby will be very fashionable prime real estate. The Waxworks Exhibition, the second-hand clothing shop, and the Mimosa cafe will be replaced by fancy boutiques and trendy restaurants. The pub will be redesigned and cater to the tourists who once again flock to the seaside. The fishermen with their slimy nets and smelly clothing will be long gone, and yachts will fill the basin. The lighthouse will endure, but without the keepers to tend the lamp. And the view of the harbour will keep changing.
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LibraryThing member LyzzyBee
Third in our Elizabeth Taylor readalong in the LibraryThing Virago group and an enjoyable read again. We're in a faded seaside town (my favourite kind) where so little happens that the inhabitants have to make up things that happen. I was reminded of a Francis Brett Young (someone will be along to
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remind me which one - the one in the street that's based on Chaddesley Corbett) and also is it a Storm Jameson I've read recently with two rivalrous female authors? Also a touch of Under Milk Wood in the lyrical descriptions, views through lit windows in the evening and the skipping between different characters and their experiences.

It's a bit disturbing as well, what with the creepy waxworks, Bertram "insinuating" himself and Prudence lugging her cats around, cooking truly awful things for them, but being unable to cope with the everyday world around her - a bit of the gothics here, I feel.

I liked Beth's readings of the male-female dynamic, especially in terms of writers and careers, both in her beady thoughts about the man on the train and her sudden cutting through Robert's personality and actions. And I loved the touches of irony: Beth writes many funerals into her books but has never actually attended one.

As usual, I'm not sure that Taylor really likes any of her characters, and nor are they very likeable (apart, perhaps, from the excellent children, Stevie and Edward) but that doesn't matter to me, as I enjoy her cool appraisal of them and their lives - Tory's disappointment when Beth's publisher turns out to be a woman; a series of insane hats; the minutiae of small town life that can destroy a reputation in a matter of hours. A good read.
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LibraryThing member katiekrug
A lovely novel depicting the lives of the inhabitants of a down-at-the-heels seaside resort in Britain just after World War II. Everything’s a bit shabby here, wrinkled and threadbare and going soft at the edges. But Taylor’s detailing of the everyday, of the misunderstandings, missed
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opportunities, and missing pieces of the puzzle, is razor sharp and illuminative. The writing is clear and beautiful:

”Seen from afar, the lighthouse merely struck deft blows at the darkness, but to anyone standing under the shelter of its white-washed walls a deeper sense of mystery was invoked: the light remained longer, it seemed, and spread wider, indicating greater ranges of darkness and deeper wonders hidden in that darkness.” (page 277)

A View of the Harbour is a finely observed novel of shifting and differing perspectives, a treat for anyone less concerned about plot and more interested in character and internal tension.
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LibraryThing member thorold
Lovely descriptive writing, plenty of period charm, some great lines, and an interesting group of characters. There is a story of sorts, but it doesn't really matter much: this is all about the momentary interactions between the characters and the setting.

In her introduction to the Virago edition,
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Sarah Waters draws attention to how visual Taylor's imagery is, with a lot of references to shapes and colours. But it's not just visual: sounds and smells play a very important part too. And we keep coming back to the passage of time:

Children know, too, those long periods of watching light as it fans out across ceilings, descends the walls. The ghost against the door returns to dressing-gown, the chest-of-drawers stands forward at last, so prosaically, a piece of furniture merely. Then, somewhere in the house, a bed moves, a grating, a creaking, prelude to the day. (Ch.15)

It would be a mistake to write it off as quaint and charming. There's a lot more going on here than a sleepy season in a decayed seaside resort. Taylor wants us to reflect on life and death, on expectations about the role of women, on the limitations of art, and on the gap between reality and imagination, among other things.

Someone else here already pointed out that there is a flavour of Under Milk Wood about A view of the harbour. I suppose a lot of that is simply down to the setting: one small fishing port is much like another. We are always going to find priests, landlords, retired captains, washerwomen and the rest. But there is also a strong similarity in the way so many of the characters have not-quite-intersecting stories, and the sense that there is a huge, exciting imaginative world concealed behind their rather prosaic lives. The two overlap in time, so either could conceivably have influenced the other, even if there's no evidence that they did — Dylan Thomas first put together some of the ideas he would use in Under Milk Wood in a short story called "Quite early one morning", broadcast in 1945; A view of the harbour was published in 1947; Thomas completed his work on Under Milk Wood in May 1953, and it was first broadcast (after his death) in January 1954.
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LibraryThing member Welshwoman
My absolute favourite of all Taylor's novels. Taylor's observation of people's behaviour and her subtlety in conveying emotion are unsurpassed.
LibraryThing member nmhale
This novel was a case of being pleasantly surprised by a story about which you don't know what to expect. I greatly enjoyed reading this book peopled by an abundance of quirky characters, whose vibrant personalities enliven the otherwise dull setting where they live.

The only reason I had heard of
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Taylor (not the actress) was because of the Virago group here on LT; the front of the book is a simple landscape of a harbor front and the description on the back indicates that the story is about an affair, and frankly, that theme has been done before. So there was nothing to indicate what kind of reading experience this would be. On the other hand, I had hopes for Taylor, since she seemed to be well-loved by the other Viragoites, but then I had never read her myself, and the book packaging just did not draw me in. I had a go at it, anyway.

How delighted I was to choose this green cover as my next read! The story, as expected, is not that original, but it doesn't matter, because the characters are marvelous. Poor Lilly, watching the world through her window of fear and widowhood, Bertram, the newcomer, who likes to insinuate himself into other lives, the wonderful writer and not so wonderful mother, Beth, and Tory, fashionable, intelligent, passionate and a bit cold, having an affair with her best friend's (Beth's) husband. I could go on about the others, but I don't want to become obnoxious. Suffice it to say that every person introduced is complex and interesting. No stereotypes here - all the cast have their positive and negative aspects, and at times I loved them, at times I disliked them, a variety of actions in between. This is a real slice-of-life tale, that focuses on one stage in the lives of these villagers, these beautifully crafted people.
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LibraryThing member BeyondEdenRock
I live in one harbour-town, I work in another, and Elizabeth Taylor swept me away to another harbour-town in another age. To Newby, a small town on the south coast just after the war.

Bertram Hemingway, a retired naval man, was a newcomer to the town. He intended to spend his days painting views of
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the harbour. He enjoyed the company of women, he enoyed being involved in the life of the town, but he gave no thought to the possibility that some would read much more than he meant into the interest he showed.

That was what happened to Lily Wilson, a shy and lonely war widow, struggling to cope with her responsibilities as proprietor of the town’s waxworks museum. Of course the was going to read things into the attentions of a man who bought her drinks, walked her home, sympathised with her.

But Bertram was more interested in the rather more sophisticated Tory Foyle. She and her husband had moved into their holiday cottage during the war, and when they divorced Tory chose to stay when her former husband returned to their home in London.

Tory was flattered by the attention, but she was caught up in an affair with, Robert Casubon, the town doctor. They had known each other for years – they were neighbours, and Robert’s wife, Beth, was Tory’s best friend – but, quite unexpectedly, something had somehow changed between them.

Beth hadn’t noticed. She was caught up in the writing of her new novel, and rather more interested in the characters in her head than her husband and daughters. She loved her family, of course she did, and she did what she should, but she felt detached and guilty at the way her work called her away from them.

But Prudence, the elder of those two daughters, had noticed.

And maybe Mrs Bracey would notice too. She observed the comings and goings of her neighbours so carefully, she loved to gossip., and her failing health often gave occasion to call out the doctor.

These, and other lives, go on behind the closed doors of this faded seaside town. And they are painted so beautifully, with understanding, with wit, and with wonderful clearsightedness.

Elizabeth Taylor’s characters are not, in the main, sympathetic, but they are intriguing. Flawed human beings, each one utterly real, and each one a product of a history that is not entirely revealed and would maybe explain much.

And so I was fascinated as I read of their overlapping lives, set out so beautifully. Wonderful prose carried me along, and so often I was touched by moments of pure insight and moments of vivid emotion.

I felt Lily’s pain as she realised she was not going to be rescued from her lonely life. I understood Prudence’s resentment as she had to fetch her father from Tory’s drawing-room when a patient called. And I smiled at the wonderful letters Tory received from her son, away at boarding school.

What didn’t ring quite so true was the portrayal of the town. There is a camaraderie and spirit among seafaring folk that spreads through seaside towns. And there are many buildings and activities around harbour-towns that you don’t find in other towns by the sea. All of this was missed, and the view was that of a visitor, not a resident.

But maybe that was deliberate; because if there is a theme running through this novel it is that we so often see a less than complete picture, or a distorted view, of the world around us.

And as a study of human lives, in showing that, this novel works quite beautifully.
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LibraryThing member oldblack
It took a while for me to get into this book (was that me or E.Taylor?), but as it went on I was more and more drawn into the story and the characters. There's nothing like a good bit of death and dying to attract my interest! Sure, Taylor is very much a product of the mid-20th century, and I
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suppose the book suffers a little with that handicap, but there's lots of good stuff here that transcends that temporal limitation. I find Taylor to be at her best when describing the subtle aspects of interactions between people and the relationship between their thoughts, their spoken language, and their behaviour. She's acutely aware of the possible discrepancies between these things.
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LibraryThing member rainpebble
I finished A View of the Harbour last evening and loved it. I am finding Elizabeth Taylor to be one of the best Virago writers in that she writes in an such an understated manner, is very subtle, and grows her characters very quietly. Love her writing. I loved the way this one ended and must say
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that while I should have been prepared for it, I was not.
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LibraryThing member BeyondEdenRock
“No gulls escorted the trawlers going out of the harbour at tea-time, as they would on the return journey; they sat upon the rocking waters without excitement, perching along the sides of the little boat, slapped up and down by one wake after another. When they rose and stretched their wings they
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were brilliantly white against the green sea. as white as the lighthouse.

To the men on the boats the harbour was at first dingy and familiar, a row of buildings, shops cafe, pub with peeling plaster of apricot and sky blue; then as boats steered purposefully from the harbour-mouth to sea, houses rose up in tiers, the church-tower extricated itself from the roofs, the lettering on the shops faded, and the sordid became picturesque.”

Those words were penned by Elizabeth Taylor, and she could so easily have been writing about my own harbour-town, but I was swept away to another harbour-town in another age. To Newby, a small town on the south coast just after the war.

Bertram Hemingway, a retired naval man, was a newcomer to the town. He intended to spend his days painting views of the harbour. He enjoyed the company of women, he enoyed being involved in the life of the town, but he gave no thought to the possibility that some would read much more than he meant into the interest he showed.

That was what happened to Lily Wilson, a shy and lonely war widow, struggling to cope with her responsibilities as proprietor of the town’s waxworks museum. Of course the was going to read things into the attentions of a man who bought her drinks, walked her home, sympathised with her.

But Bertram was more interested in the rather more sophisticated Tory Foyle. She and her husband had moved into their holiday cottage during the war, and when they divorced Tory chose to stay when her former husband returned to their home in London.

Tory was flattered by the attention, but she was caught up in an affair with, Robert Casubon, the town doctor. They had known each other for years – they were neighbours, and Robert’s wife, Beth, was Tory’s best friend – but, quite unexpectedly, something had somehow changed between them.

Beth hadn’t noticed. She was caught up in the writing of her new novel, and rather more interested in the characters in her head than her husband and daughters. She loved her family, of course she did, and she did what she should, but she felt detached and guilty at the way her work called her away from them.

But Prudence, the elder of those two daughters, had noticed.

And maybe Mrs Bracey would notice too. She observed the comings and goings of her neighbours so carefully, she loved to gossip., and her failing health often gave occasion to call out the doctor.

These, and other lives, go on behind the closed doors of this faded seaside town. And they are painted so beautifully, with understanding, with wit, and with wonderful clearsightedness.

Elizabeth Taylor’s characters are not, in the main, sympathetic, but they are intriguing. Flawed human beings, each one utterly real, and each one a product of a history that is not entirely revealed and would maybe explain much.

And so I was fascinated as I read of their overlapping lives, set out so beautifully. Wonderful prose carried me along, and so often I was touched by moments of pure insight and moments of vivid emotion.

I felt Lily’s pain as she realised she was not going to be rescued from her lonely life. I understood Prudence’s resentment as she had to fetch her father from Tory’s drawing-room when a patient called. And I smiled at the wonderful letters Tory received from her son, away at boarding school.

What didn’t ring quite so true was the portrayal of the town. There is a camaraderie and spirit among seafaring folk that spreads through seaside towns. And there are many buildings and activities around harbour-towns that you don’t find in other towns by the sea. All of this was missed, and the view was that of a visitor, not a resident.

But maybe that was deliberate; because if there is a theme running through this novel it is that we so often see a less than complete picture, or a distorted view, of the world around us.

And as a study of human lives, in showing that, this novel works quite beautifully.
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LibraryThing member snash
Well written story of a cast of characters living in a dying English fishing village. Each of the characters is believable, full of anxieties and faults, trying their best to find their way.
LibraryThing member -Cee-
A different kind of book focusing on a handful of characters living in an old fishing village in England. The town is dying and those left are remnants of a by-gone era. Lots of introspection, judgement, and speculation paint a sad picture of what this town and its people have become. You begin to
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wonder if any of the townfolk can be saved from themselves.

The writing is wonderful. It starts out scattered and all comes together like a woven tapestry. Even better, there are lots of zingers in what this author wants you to think about and notice. I loved several quotable passages - this following being one of my favorites:

"The day comes in slowly to those who are ill. The night has separated them from the sleepers, who return to them like strangers from a distant land, full of clumsy preparations for living, the earth itself creaking towards the light."

Not action-packed - no violence, sex, or superheros- this is a perceptive look at what it is to be human in a forgotten little town. Slowly unfolding, but not boring...
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LibraryThing member eachurch
A quiet book that unfolds slowly but in a wonderfully interesting way. The ending is breathtaking. Elizabeth Taylor is a remarkable author.
LibraryThing member nocto
Nothing wrong with this, it just took me a long time to read it. It didn't hold my attention enough to get through it at any reasonable pace, and it wasn't uninteresting enough to put down. Faint praise I know. There was one very good storyline with good characters: Tory having an affair with her
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best friend Beth's husband, and Beth's daughter Prudence's take on it; and another storyline with Maisie and her dying mother that didn't go anywhere much that I could see - the book didn't quite seem to be balanced.
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LibraryThing member jennieg
A tedious book about dull people in a boring town. I did not bother to finish this dog.
LibraryThing member japaul22
I've heard so many positive things about this author, but I have to say I was kind of disappointed in this book. It's the kind of book I should love - 1950s, british, woman author, character-study type of book, but for some reason it didn't work for me. I felt that there were too many characters, I
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didn't like any of them, and the plot jumped around too much for me. I think the main thing was that I felt the characters and book in general were missing a certain charm that I look for in a book like this. That's a hard thing to put into words, but nonetheless I felt its lack in the book.
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LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd
A bit slow off the mark, this novel rewards the reader's perseverance with Taylor's usual cold-blooded portrayal of human nature. Her ordinary people are so full of common quirks, uncommon eccentricities, pettiness and occasionally a dash of generosity that one almost has to squirm with recognition
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as they play their roles out on the page.
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Subjects

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1947

ISBN

9781590178492
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