It was only yesterday that I saw on Simon's blog that this was the bit of Elizabeth Taylor's centenary year when people would be reading A View of the Harbour. I had known this, and had a copy, but had completely forgotten to read it. But luckily I had a long journey ahead of me -- car to airport, sit in airport, fly to Stansted, train to Liverpool Street, tube to Hammersmith -- and in that time I actually managed to read the whole novel.
As I have undoubtedly said before, I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Taylor. I've read quite a few but though I have owned this for ages, for some reason I had never got around to reading it. One thing I really admire about Taylor is that her novels are not all the same. That sounds ridiculous, perhaps, but when you think of Angel, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, and At Mrs Lippincotes, for example, you might see what I mean. Of course there are common concerns, and a common style, and how I do love Taylor's cool, wry wit and her wonderful observation of people and their foibles and their inner lives.
I noticed that Simon said in his review yesterday that he felt that there were too many threads in this novel. I really disagree. Yes there is a large cast of characters, and each has their own story. All are separate but all are somehow connected and this clearly is the purpose here -- a panorama of ordinary people and their generally troubled inner lives. Central to the plot, and the source of the title, is the elderly would-be painter Bertram Hemingway, who has come to stay in the small, rather run-down seaside town Newby and has plans to paint the definitive view of the harbour. Of course this has resonances throughout the novel -- Hemingway fails utterly, as he plainly lacks skill and talent, but Taylor, who has also set out to do this, succeeds brilliantly. Hemingway is a fascinating character. He is pompous and self-serving but not entirely without self-knowledge. He has ambitions to be a great painter but knows he never will be. A life-long batchelor, he likes women a great deal but is well aware that he uses them ruthlessly and drops them without a backward glance when it suits him. More or less universally disliked, he is the only person who gives up his time to sit with old Mrs Bracey, talk to her, listen to her ramblings, and finally wait for her drawn-out death.
After toying, with disastrous results, with Lily Wilson, a sad, lonely war widow (for this is 1947, by the way), Hemingway turns his attention to beautiful, elegant Tory Foyle.Tory is divorced, missing her small son Edward who has gone to boarding school -- and secretly getting deeply involved with the husband of her oldest friend, who lives next door. This agonising, irresistible affair has been discovered by Robert's daughter Prudence, who is furious and miserable. But Beth, Robert's wife, and a successful novelist, is completely unaware of what is going on. Over at Mrs Bracey's, the aged, partially paralysed matriach lies in her bed, bullying her two daughters, sucking in the local gossip, greedily reading books about the dirty goings on of the natives in far-flung places. Her daughter Iris works in the pub and dreams that Laurence Olivier may come in one day, though she can't imagine what they would talk about if he did, while her sister Maisie is no dreamer, simply getting on with her life in a simple, practical way.
There is so much that could be said about these people and their stories, but the thing that struck me most forcibly here was how unhappy, frustrated, disappointed, everybody was. The only person, really, who is not unhappy is Beth, the novelist, and this is because she lives entirely in the life of her novels. This means that though she just about manages to keep her house and family together, she rarely goes out and has little or no idea of anything that is going on around her. Of course this is profoundly ironic since there is at least as much drama surrounding her in real life as there is between the pages of her novels. But luckily this means she is protected from the pain she would suffer if she knew of Tory's involvement with her husband.
This is an extraordinarily complex, subtle, and beautifully observed novel. Taylor sometimes makes me laugh, and always amazes me with the profound insight she has into people and their inner lives. I'll just leave you with a quotation -- possibly not a particularly representative one, but I liked it, so here it is.
Lily Wilson sat behind the lace curtains with Lady Audley's Secret on her lap, but it was too dark to read. Although awaited, the first flash of the lighthouse was always surprising and made of the movement something enchanting and miraculaous, sweeping over the pidgeon-coloured evening with condescension and negligence, half-returning, withdrawing, and then, almost forgotten, opening its fan again across the water, encircled, so Lily thought, all the summer through by mazed birds and moths, betrayed, as some creatures are preserved, by that caprice of nature which cherishes the ermine, the chameleon, the stick-insect, but lays sly traps for others, the moths and lemmings. 'And women?', Lily wondered, and she turned down a corner of Lady Audley's Secret to mark the place, and stood up yawning.
I think Taylor is a really important writer. I'd love to have a small class of really bright students to sit down with and discuss this novel at length. I think it would pass a number of very happy hours. Failing that, look at Simon's blog today for other views!