A View of the Harbour

[Sara, New School Classics]

This thread is for the discussion of A View of the Harbour which begins in July. Sorry to be so late setting up the thread!

[Anne]

Sara wrote: "This thread is for the discussion of A View of the Harbour which begins in July. Sorry to be so late setting up the thread!"

When does the actual discussion start, Sara?

[Michaela]

I want to participate too. Thanks Sara!

[Sara, New School Classics]

Anytime after the first is fine, Anne. I haven't started the read yet, so I will not be commenting for at least a few days into July. I'm off my schedule completely at this juncture, but it is my first read for the month.

So glad to have you here, Michaela!

[Diane]

I'll be joining in, but need to finish Corrag first. Sometime this weekend for me.

[Sara, New School Classics]

Oooh, so glad you are reading Corrag. Cannot wait to hear your thoughts.

[Antoinette]

I will be joining in as well, Sara.
Diane, I will be starting Corrag soon as well. Waiting for my library copy.

[Sara, New School Classics]

Wonderful, Antoinette. Enjoy Corrag!

[Candi]

I love that there are new Corrag readers!!

I've got my copy of A View of the Harbour ready to go. I'll start it up once I finish A Town Like Alice :)

[Sara, New School Classics]

Goodness! Everyone is reading my favorite books. Hope this one measures up.

[Terry]

I will start it after I finish the spy thriller for my Book Club, American Traitor. Spy novels are not my usual fare, but after struggling with acronyms and so many characters to keep track of, I am enjoying this one. However, I will be quite ready to join in something completely different.

[Carolien]

I'll join, but I have to finish The Good Earth and Possession first, so probably only towards the end of next week.

[Sara, New School Classics]

Excited to have so many of us reading it.

[Anne]

I will start as soon as I finish Father Goriot. Looking forward. I was going to squeeze in Corrag but will read it after View From the Harbor. So many great books, so little time. :))

[Antoinette]

Totally agree Anne-so many books I want to get to. I, too, will start with A View From the Harbor. Looking forward to it:)

[Michaela]

I will start this later too.

[Marilyn]

I hope to start early next week.

[Candi]

I've been reading this off and on for the past couple of days. I was initially a bit confused about the introductions to the many different characters, but it's coming together for me nicely now. I really enjoy the writing style and the descriptions of the harbor!

[Antoinette]

I am loving the writing style as well. Once you meet all the characters, the author really develops them all in the subsequent chapters. The view of the harbour comes up frequently. Reminds me of being in Cornwall.

[Terry]

Candi, I had the experience, but now that I am a third into the novel, it is becoming more enjoyable as the characters are becoming more fully realized.

[Diane]

I felt the same way at first. There a a lot of characters and side stories, but they are coming together nicely and the pieces are fitting together. I t seems to be a sad little town.

[Antoinette]

I agree, Diane about the town being a sad little town. It is post WWII and their economy is struggling. Is there one person that we’ve met so far that is genuinely happy. I can’t think of anyone.

[Diane]

I'm just at the halfway point. You're right Antoinette, no one is really happy, with the exception of Bertram, but he's just visiting and isn't from there. There are some great lines showing Taylor's dry wit though. "She described her son Edward as an ordinary little boy. She did so not only because she believed it to be true, but partly because she was weary of all the mothers of her acquaintance claiming sensitive and highly strung children, no matter how phlegmatic, even bovine they might be."

[Veronique]

Wow! So many comments already!
I shall be reading this too, probably next week :O)

[Diane]

Veronique, I am finding it a slow read. I'm enjoying it when I sit down to read, but feel no real compulsion to find out what happens to make me read any faster.

[Sara, New School Classics]

I also found this a slow start, but events in Chapter Four brought my interest level up a notch. I am also catching and enjoying the bits of dry wit. Bertram is an interesting character--I'm not sure if I like him or not.

[Candi]

I'm with you on Bertram, Sara. I'm quite a bit farther along and still don't know what to make of him! Although I certainly enjoy him as a character here :)

[Diane]

I can sympathize with the small town feel of always being on view and subject to others opinions. I used to live in a small beach town that had seen better days. As the Doctor thinks at one point, "Everyone knows my car." Even when you think you are unseen, someone is watching and making assumptions and judgements. A lot of these characters are trapped by circumstance, with no real place to go other than where they are. Except for Bertram.

[Sara, New School Classics]

I also know that small town dynamic, Diane. We are told Lily doesn't worry about any gossip because she is doing nothing wrong with Bertram, but of course, I know there is bound to be gossip...small towns love it.

I like the device of Bertram as the outsider. He sees through these people and is often having thoughts that are revealing or insightful. When he is talking to Tory about Robert To himself, he thought: "So she can describe everyone, but not him." And, we of course, know why. Very subtle, but very effective.

[Michaela]

I haven´t started yet, but a question: Are there spoilers in this thread?

[Diane]

Sara wrote: "I also know that small town dynamic, Diane. We are told Lily doesn't worry about any gossip because she is doing nothing wrong with Bertram, but of course, I know there is bound to be gossip...smal..."

She does that very seamlessly Sara, showing us their thoughts as opposed to their spoken words. I was listening to NPR reporting on things people missed most in the pandemic, and a couple of people said real live gossip, that and the fact there was nothing to gossip about during the shutdowns.

[Sara, New School Classics]

Michaela wrote: "I haven´t started yet, but a question: Are there spoilers in this thread?"

I would not consider anything a spoiler, Michaela. There is some discussion of how the characters are treated in general, but it does not reveal any plot elements.

[Michaela]

Thanks Sara! I didn´t dare to read them... ;)

[Sara, New School Classics]

OK, Wow, I finished and I love the way Taylor seems to be telling such a simple tale in the beginning, uneventful, and then you close and realize she has hit on just about every emotion and relationship in existence.

(view spoiler)[You could almost be for or against any one of these people at any time in the book. I felt for Beth, because she was the betrayed, but on the other hand, she was so intentionally burying herself in the fantasy world of her writings and refusing to see anything going on around her. I disliked Tory, but by the same token, I felt for her losing her identity as Teddy's wife and the life she expected would go on forever and not really knowing exactly who she was anymore.

Poor Lily coming home to that wax mausoleum every night, walking into the arms of that creepy librarian lurking at her own front door, being dropped by Bertram, and then having her reputation trashed without having committed any wrong-doing. I couldn't muster any sympathy at all for Mrs. Bracey. Even as an invalid, she was just too mean to pity...but, even she had her inner thoughts of better times and things lost, dreams of who she might have been, if only.

Maisie was genuinely sad, mistreated and unappreciated; but she allowed herself to be the martyr. She might have done as her sister and found herself a life. She should have gone to the movies with Eddie and hang her mother.

And then there is Patience. How will this secret she is party to affect the rest of her life? Her own choices? Her ability to truly trust a man?

What made this work for me was that they were all "real". No saints, no devils, just people struggling to find a place where they can fit and be happy, but most of them looking in the wrong place and knowing it. From the outset Tory and Robert know this is both dangerous and futile. Why do they do it? How often have you seen that yourself? I have. People are always reaching for things they know will leave them burnt and burn others, innocents.

Obviously, I liked this book. I love to be left pondering and the ending was perfect, because we know that we do not know the ending really. Life doesn't stop when we ride off into the sunset (or move our asses to London), it just opens the next chapter. The only story that is ended is Mrs. Bracey's. (hide spoiler)]

[Antoinette]

Totally agree, Sara! Not sure how much I can say without spoilers at this point. What I will say is how well drawn out each character was. I could picture each and everyone of them. I couldn’t help not trusting Bertram. He was too in your face. I would love to discuss how it all ended.

[Sara, New School Classics]

I felt much the same about Bertram. (view spoiler)[He was so interested in being perceived as kind and helpful, but was he really? I felt he was someone who could blow with any wind. This quote said it all for me:

"Very tactfully he had done a very great kindness. When he was kind to people he had to love them; but when he had loved them for a little while he wished only to be rid of them and so that he might free himself would not hesitate to inflict all the cruelties which his sensibility knew they could not endure."

What he did to Lily was what defined him, for me. (hide spoiler)]

The ending: (view spoiler)[I loved that it ended with Teddy returning, because I interpret that to mean he might be coming back into Tory's life. Will she be married to Bertram? Will she use him to taunt Teddy? Will Teddy find her more desirable if someone else wants her? Is that why he returned...after all, Edward knows she is planning to marry again. What it says to me is that there is no end to the story. This is life and life goes on, and it will continue to be just as messy and complicated after "the end" as it was before. (hide spoiler)]

[Antoinette]

Sara, how do I see your spoilers?

[Angelique]

Antoinette wrote: "Sara, how do I see your spoilers?"

Just click on the word spoiler. It might not work in the Goodreads App though (which is one of the many reasons why I removed that app from my phone)

[Diane]

Like you Sara, I both liked and disliked all these characters at one point or another, but that's true of everyone I know in real life too. The ending blew me away, because in just a few words, everything that was settled, was now up in the air. And it came in via the Harbour. The lighthouse symbolized an all-seeing eye to me. At crucial points, the light would flash as it came around. I thought that was significant.

Beth's obsession with her writing made me a little uncomfortable. Not because I write, but because I read. At times I am guilty of "let's get this over with so I can get back to my book."

[Sara, New School Classics]

Antoinette, if you cannot open them on the app, just sign into your account directly on the web and they will open for you.

Diane - I also thought the lighthouse was a major symbol in this book. Every view of the harbour pivoted around the lighthouse, but the light was intermittent, so there were always periods of darkness, things that remained hidden.

Ouch, guilty also of being more absorbed in my book I am reading than the life going on around me. Beth not only used the book she was writing to escape her life, but she knew that was what she was doing and she chastised herself for it. Interestingly, however, whenever she tried to reverse that, everything seemed to blow up in her face. The scene with Stevie over the fairytale was so poignant and meaningful to me...it was Beth who wanted and needed the fairytale, Stevie abhorred it and was frightened by it. I admire the way Taylor could layer an incident so that it was both a common, everyday occurrence and yet also a crucial comment on the lives of these characters.

[Terry]

I particularly like the portrait of Stevie, so well written, such as when she doesn’t want to eat her dinner. It’s a gift to be able to write a scene so revealing as that.

[Sara, New School Classics]

If you have spent much time around a child of five, Stevie rings dozens of bells with you. I loved the shaving brush made of feathers...she would have expected him to use it, and yet she was quick to realize she couldn't make a feather hat for her mother--too complicated. Crying to go with Beth to London and then immediately happy after Beth had left. She nails mothers too. Stevie had moved on, but Beth was still anguished over it on the train.

[Antoinette]

Thinking of the three mothers in this book, it was interesting how she portrayed them all so differently. We have Mrs Bracey, domineering and cruel to her daughters. We have Beth, who gives her two daughters short bursts of attention when she must. She’d rather be writing as you have said, Sara. Then there is Tory, who dotes and worries about her son. They all ring true to me. I think we as mother can easily move through all three.
Taylor certainly gives you lots to think about.
That ending , Diane. I agree, wow. I wish there was a sequel. I read somewhere that Taylor liked open endings. She certainly gave us one in this book.

[Sara, New School Classics]

Agree, Antoinette. All mothers, I'm betting, are all three of these at some time in life.

Taylor's open endings always say to me...I've shown you this moment in time, but time isn't static, so it continues to throw things at us, even when we think the story is done. The only way we are truly out of it is when we die...and then, who knows?

[Antoinette]

Love your comment, Sara. Very apropos.

[Candi]

I finished the other day. I very much enjoyed my first Elizabeth Taylor novel! At first I thought it was going to be just way too many characters to keep track of, but then each became distinct from one another and Taylor made it all so easy. They all seemed so very real to me - not caricatures of certain kinds of people, which I feel is a trap an author can fall into when creating so many characters.

I didn't particularly want to sit down to tea with a single one of them, but I also didn't really hate any of them either. People like Mrs. Bracey make me mad though - keeping others down just because her life (while I did feel sorry for this) has taken a nose dive. I felt her pain in some sense, but I can never understand why anyone, in particular a mother, would want to make someone else's life (especially that of her own offspring!) just as miserable as his/her own.

I loved the symbolism of the lighthouse. And then the painting that was already on the wall and then the one that Bertram though he would paint and therefore improve upon the existing one. Did he in fact improve upon it?! That's a good question!

(view spoiler)[Bertram's presence may have improved the lives of some temporarily at least - Mrs. Bracey. But he didn't do any favors to Lily. And it remains to be seen with Tory... I wasn't at all expecting that ending!! I think Tory would have to give up Bertram - she never could quite let go of her ex :)spoiler (hide spoiler)]

[Candi]

Oh, and I felt way too much identification towards Beth on several occasions!! :D :D

[Sara, New School Classics]

Interesting question about the paintings, Candi. (view spoiler)[Since he admitted to being a mediocre painter and that this work was not even his best, I would say, no. He was just another undistinguished work on an anonymous wall, which is a cypher for what he is in life. He doesn't stay or make a true difference in anyone's life, he just flits through. If Tory leaves to go back to Teddy, he will claim he was committed and left behind; but if she doesn't, he will leave, because he has already started out with reservations. Remember, he didn't really propose. He was joking...then she proposed as a way to get out the situation she was in. And, it is clear she doesn't love Bertram. So, what chance do they really have? Mediocrity at best, once again.

Beth has value, but I don't think Robert would ever be able to see that. When the children are gone, what would you expect their lives to be like? I see them discontented, and Beth always burying herself in some imaginary life instead of embracing her real life. Maybe it is the going that causes that...the knowing that there will be separation of some kind in the end, even if the separation is death.

I disliked Mrs. Bracey, and Maisie is the character I most hope will have a change of fortune at the end. I could see her slipping into a guilt trip, though, and I don't think she should put too much hope in Eddie, who can't seem to decide whether he might not want to take a whirl at Iris instead. (hide spoiler)]

I am still thinking about this one and your post dragged me right back into it, Candi. I love your thoughts on the cast of characters, because you are so right, most authors fail to make them individuals when they tackle so many.

[Diane]

In the other Taylors that I've read, that same feeling of ambivalence comes in for me, neither loving nor hating the characters, but like an outsider looking in, I can see exactly where they are going wrong. With the exception of Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. Mrs. Palfrey didn't ask for her situation, but made the most of it. I felt like the harbor itself was a character here, and that all-seeing lighthouse. I'm glad you liked this one Candi.

[Candi]

Thanks for those additional insights, Sara, particularly on Bertram and his paintings. It's something I've been thinking about for a couple of days now :)

Diane, interesting that you've felt similarly for characters in other Taylor books. It must be her trademark of being able to make such observations without necessarily attaching the reader to any particular one. I'm anxious to read about Mrs. Palfrey and it may very well be my next Taylor pick!