Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont

The latest in my review of London books is Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth Taylor the author, not to be confused with Elizabeth Taylor the actress seems to be having a little bit of a resurgence in recent years.  Her books are often on display in book shops, perhaps in part due to the attractive editions published by Virago Modern Classics.  I remain hopeful it is also because she is being given the recognition she deserves as a subtle and observant writer.

Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont is the 12th of the 14 novels written by Elizabeth Taylor and was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1971.

The novel opens on a wet January Sunday afternoon.

“Mrs Palfrey came to the Claremont Hotel on a Sunday afternoon in January.  Rain had closed in over London, and her taxi sloshed along the almost deserted Cromwell Road, past one cavernous porch after another, the driver going slowly and poking his head out into the wet, for the hotel was not known to him. The discovery, that he did not know, had disconcerted Mrs Palfrey, for she did not know it either, and began to wonder what she was coming to”

This less than glowing advert for London or the future of Mrs Laura Palfrey sets the scene.  Recently widowed, Mrs Palfrey has left her comfortable home forto spend her remaining days.  She doesn’t know anyone at the hotel and the only person she knows in London is a ‘beloved’ grandson with home her relationship is somewhat distant.  She has eschewed the offer of living with her daughter in Scotland imagining instead for herself a life in London filled with theatre and exhibitions and regular teas with friend and excitement.

Instead what she finds at the Claremont is a moderate hotel in South Kensington inhabited by a mixed bunch of flawed and eccentric residents. The common denominator of them all is their lack of direction and purpose coupled with a typical stiff upper lip Britishness which prevents any of them admitting to boredom or lack of fulfilment.

This is not the life Mrs Palfrey has signed up for, and just when she seems doomed to spend her remaining days in monotony she falls outside the basement flat of a young writer called Ludo. Ludo becomes the key to adventure and freedom.

When they first meet Ludo tells Mrs Palfrey he works in Harrods.  When she asks him which department, he goes on to reveal he actually works at Harrods.

“Oh no I don’t work for Harrods.  I work at Harrods.  In the Banking Hall.  I take my writing and sa few sandwiches there.  It’s nice and warm and they’re such comfortable chairs.  And I save lighting this gas-fire. which eats up milk”

This is the beginning of  slowly burgeoning friendship.  Laura is both heartend and fascinated by his mischievous attitude and as a woman of great resourcefulness invites him to dinner, persuading Ludo to take on the role of her grandson Desmond

Soon, Ludo and Laura discover a usefulness in each other.  As Laura finds in Ludo the ‘grandson’ she wishes she had, he finds in her a sympathy and generosity whilst using her as a character study for his writing.

Their relationship becomes one of great interest to the other residents of The Claremont where mostly the greatest excitement of the day is the arrival of the daily menu choices.

They comment endlessly on the perceived ‘grandson’ and Laura does little to relieve them of this ‘mild deception’ as Ludo becomes the loving and attentive grandson they all secretly wish they had.  Each character is well developed and very clear in the mind’s eye.  There is a ‘cruelty’ to the likes of Mrs Arbuthnot and Mr Osmond as they use cutting words and attitudes to protect themselves from acknowledging the disappointment of their own  lives.

Elizabeth Taylor famously wrote in scenes.  This means that each event or scene is closely observed.  There are no great moments of drama just a gentle flow from one scene to another.

A quiet novel with a sharply focused examination of old age.  It draws out the humor and sadness of a situation that most of us would not want to find ourselves in, whilst sensitvely examining society’s view of the elderly

Anne Tyler, another writer of whom I am inordinately fond says this of Elizabeth Taylor ‘Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabath Bowen – soul-sisters all’

As a fan of all three, I rest my case.

You can buy Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont via my page on Bookshop.org.  By doing so you will be supporting independent bookshops.

You might enjoy some of my other London Book Reviews

The London Scene by Virginia Woolf

Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce

Rescue Me by Sara Manning