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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Took some time to properly get into it, there are so many characters introduced very quickly.
The writing is incredible and so many parts were beautifully done.
Some of the characters are clearly flawed but it was entertaining (and frustrating!)
Not much happens throughout but how it was told kept me fully interested.
I enjoyed imagining this coastal town and loved the community feel where everyone knows each other.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don't think I've ever read anything with more real, believable characters. Elizabeth Taylor just gets how people work, and this is her masterpiece of observation. A witty, thoughtful novel that is nothing short of exceptional.
54th book of 2023.
I made it to Taylor's third book, a title that was slightly more familiar to me than her first two; and it is here that you can feel her confidence building. She already wrote great sentences, but in this book they are even more refined. This novel is like Taylor's To the Lighthouse, and as her previous books were inspired by Austen, the Brontes, it's fairly clear to see Woolf was her inspiration here. The harbour is almost painted by Taylor's prose. Take this passage, for example.
Or, as I'm a sucker for artists/writers becoming adjectives: 'Out of the swollen, gilded Turneresque sky, a shaft of blood-red sunshine struck the painted jug on the washhand-stand...'
The start is a whirlwind of names. Taylor doesn't start the novel well but for the next 300 pages I was drawn into this little harbour and the quiet lives of its inhabitants, the whole novel feeling, well, yes, Turneresque. If you like delicate sentences, witty but subtle English humour and reading about mundane lives, everyday problems, illness, affairs, etc., then I recommend.
Turner's Calm Sea with Distant Grey Clouds
___________
[1] Though, for the life of me, can't figure this out. A typo? But of what? I Googled the word and it got two hits, both referring to this book, quoting the word. I'm lost.
I made it to Taylor's third book, a title that was slightly more familiar to me than her first two; and it is here that you can feel her confidence building. She already wrote great sentences, but in this book they are even more refined. This novel is like Taylor's To the Lighthouse, and as her previous books were inspired by Austen, the Brontes, it's fairly clear to see Woolf was her inspiration here. The harbour is almost painted by Taylor's prose. Take this passage, for example.
Nothing clouded Edward's happiness. Life entranced him. When the sun shone it touched his very bones. Time was undivided now by bells clanging; so he could drift, beguiled, unchevied [1] wandering in that maze of alley-ways where the roofs went tipping down so steeply towards the harbour that he could spit down the chimneys from where he stood, he thought. With the sun shining on them, these roofs were colours of pigeons - the slates of rose and grey and lavender and blue. It was all familiar yet wonderful to him.
Or, as I'm a sucker for artists/writers becoming adjectives: 'Out of the swollen, gilded Turneresque sky, a shaft of blood-red sunshine struck the painted jug on the washhand-stand...'
The start is a whirlwind of names. Taylor doesn't start the novel well but for the next 300 pages I was drawn into this little harbour and the quiet lives of its inhabitants, the whole novel feeling, well, yes, Turneresque. If you like delicate sentences, witty but subtle English humour and reading about mundane lives, everyday problems, illness, affairs, etc., then I recommend.
Turner's Calm Sea with Distant Grey Clouds
___________
[1] Though, for the life of me, can't figure this out. A typo? But of what? I Googled the word and it got two hits, both referring to this book, quoting the word. I'm lost.
This is the third novel I've ready by Taylor and though I really liked it, I would have to say of the three I've read so far, it's my least favorite. "A View of the Harbour" has a much larger cast of characters than the other two novels I've read and that might be part of the reason I didn't like it quite as well. In this one we are introduced to 9 or 10 characters in the first 30 pages, all of them residents of a rather rundown, seaside harbour town. Though I was amazed as always at Taylor's writing and how she moved between characters and gave us access to each character's thoughts, I found myself drawn to certain characters and less interested in others. Unfortunately, the two characters I found to be the most unsympathetic (Tory and Robert) had more pages devoted to them than the characters I found more interesting (Lily, Iris, Prudence and Mrs. Bracey). Taylor's books are not plot driven but tend to be more devoted to studying characters and this book, with its large cast is no different. How well you enjoy this book will depend entirely on whether or not you can appreciate a novel that basically details the meandering day-to-day lives of a town's inhabitants.
The book is very English in feeling (i.e. young boys sent off to boarding school, the importance of the local pub) and though it takes place right after WWII, in many ways, it feels surprisingly modern, especially the glimpses of feminism that are presented through the thoughts of the character, Beth, who is a novelist and how she feels her business outings to meet her publisher are not taken seriously by her husband because she's a woman. This section is quoted in the nyrb edition's introduction by Roxana Robinson, an introduction well worth reading.
An enjoyable read, mostly because of Taylor's glorious writing style, but also one that I felt went on for a little too long.
The book is very English in feeling (i.e. young boys sent off to boarding school, the importance of the local pub) and though it takes place right after WWII, in many ways, it feels surprisingly modern, especially the glimpses of feminism that are presented through the thoughts of the character, Beth, who is a novelist and how she feels her business outings to meet her publisher are not taken seriously by her husband because she's a woman. This section is quoted in the nyrb edition's introduction by Roxana Robinson, an introduction well worth reading.
An enjoyable read, mostly because of Taylor's glorious writing style, but also one that I felt went on for a little too long.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An outstanding novel by one of England's great novelists. Taylor has the deep psychological understanding of George Eliot, the sharp wit of Muriel Spark, and the eloquence and storytelling panache of Jane Austen in a battle of the sexes. The adult characters are all flawed but all are enthralling, the children charming, strange horrors. Highly recommended to those who love great literary fiction.
What a surprise this book was, like Trollope meets Virginia Woolf. Just a great novel.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
medium-paced
A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor
Read in Braille
Vintage Modern Classics
Pub. 1947, 313pp
___
This was a surprisingly good choice for a holiday read, seeing as it’s main theme is loneliness so not the most uplifting of topics! I found myself reading it by the coast and the sound of the waves and clattering masts of boats along with the warm breeze all added to the experience.
There is a cast of about 8 quirky characters to get to know in this quiet and rather shabby post-war coastal town and it does take a while to get into their lives, but once you’re there you’re hooked.
The central friendship of Tory and Beth is so well told; they’ve known each other since school and are very different and argue, but also have moments of wonderful companionship. They live next door to each other now, Tory has a son, Edward, who’s at boarding school, and is divorced from her wealthy husband who’s run off with a young servicewoman he met during the war; and Beth and her doctor husband Robert have two children.
Beth is a writer and I was struck by how her storyline is concerned with the timeless issue of mother’s guilt, as she carves out a way to write which results in her becoming completely absorbed in her creativity and oblivious to what’s going on around her. And there’s a great scene where Tory’s delighting in dressing Beth up for her trip to London to meet her publisher where she’s comically disappointed at the end to find that Beth’s editor is a woman.
Bertram’s a key character who weaves the story together, and we’re introduced to him right from the beginning. He’s a retired naval officer who’s visiting Newby to take up painting but mostly spends his time ‘insinuating’ himself (as he puts it) into the lives of women in the town. He’s staying at the local pub where he spends his evenings playing dominoes with the men and meets Lily, a widow who he starts to befriend, and who craves his company. He soon transfers his interest to Tory who he’s admired from his vantage point at the harbour and also spends time with the housebound and rather bitter Mrs Bracey, who he gets to know through her daughter Iris, the pub’s barmaid. He thinks he’s doing good by making these connections but soon shows himself to be rather self centred:
“‘Yes,’ he thought to himself, ‘they will all remember me. Yes after, they will say to one another, ‘that was the summer he came,’ like the man in the concert party who wore the pink-and-white striped blazer and whom they all remembered and so often talked about. Where was he now? But wherever he was he had left something of his personality in the place as other visitors had not, a thumb-print, something not tangible like Mr Walker’s oil-painting hanging in the Anchor, but the very gentlest of mementoes, a stirring-up of the imagination merely. And I will leave both,’ Bertram decided, ‘the tangible and the intangible, the souvenir and the memory itself, the thumb’s pressure and the painting in the bar parlour.’”
Later in the novel I was rooting for Prudence, Beth’s 20 year old daughter. She’s a quiet girl who doesn’t have much of an independent life, cooking for her beloved cats and looking after her 5 year old sister Stevie, while her mother works. She sees what’s going on between her father and Tory and is filled with rage but is not mature enough to influence the situation. There’s a lovely scene where she finally goes on a date:
“While the sun was setting Prudence and Geoffrey sat under the may-tree in the churchyard. Prudence wore her sage green dress, her coral bracelets. Geoffrey read poetry out of a little suede-covered book. Prudence passed her hand across her jaw and put a little yawn into it as she did so.” That made me laugh!
This beautifully observed novel has a lovely afterword by Robert Liddell, a writer friend of Elizabeth Taylor. A touching book which leaves you wondering about the fate of the characters.
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character