Toward the end of the bridegroom’s speech, the bride turned to the side to throw crumbs of wedding cake to doves outside the marquee.
Although she had caused a little rustle of amusement among the guests, she did not know it: her husband was embarrassed by her behaviour and thought it early in their married life to be so: but she did not know that either.
And that is how we meet Flora, the bride and protagonist of Elizabeth Taylor’s The Soul of Kindness. Continue reading
Five things I thought while listening to A Family Romance by Anita Brookner:
01. I can rely on Brookner for the sort of consistency that I love in Yates or Taylor.
02. So, so glad that there’s a bunch of Brookner on my library’s BorrowBox list and that it’s narrated by Fiona Shaw (whose voice has just enough plum to provide deeply satisfying listening). Continue reading
A quick review of two very different books – perhaps unfair to lump these together but my blogging has not kept up with my reading during the last month, so I’m catching up. Continue reading
I’m back in familiar-short-story-territory with Elizabeth Harrower’s A Few Days in the Country and Other Stories. And that territory is uneven. Some of the stories in this collection shone but others, not so much. There are twelve stories, predominantly exploring the different roles of women – in friendship, as mothers and daughters, and as wives. Continue reading
Ready for a thoroughly ‘modern’ drawing-room drama? Look no further than Elizabeth Taylor’s In a Summer Season.
No, not Elizabeth Taylor the actress – I wonder how many times Elizabeth Taylor, author, introduced herself with “No, not the Elizabeth Taylor…”. Which is unfortunate because she is the Elizabeth Taylor when it comes to very fine stories that, in so many ways, were far ahead of their time.
In a Summer Season is the story of Kate Heron, a wealthy widow who marries, much to the disapproval of friends and neighbours, a man ten years her junior, Dermot. Add to the mix the return of a dear old friend, Charles, and his beautiful daughter, Kate’s children Lou and Tom, each with problems of their own, an interfering mother-in-law and a watchful aunt. Continue reading
