mrs palfrey at the claremont book review

Palfrey encounters the handsome young writers, Ludo, and we learn that even the old can fall in love. Together, upper lips stiffened, teeth gritted, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and teh Grim Reaper. Osmond with his risque stories and endless stream of letters to the press. Burton with her mauve-rinsed hair, her costume jewelry, and her drinking Mrs. Her fellow residents are a magnificently eccentric group who live off crumbs of affection, obsessive interest in the relentless round of hotel meals, and undying curiosity. Palfrey, recently widowed, arrives at the Claremont Hotel in the Cromwell Road. The flowers start wilting before you give them away.During November we will read and discuss Elizabeth Taylor’s eleventh novel, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. Living gets harder, physically, mentally. You, too, will probably some day be in a position where you are conscious of every step you take and you are struggling to remember the poems you loved in your youth. It's a tricky thing to read a novel like this because it confronts you with the inevitable. Post's hidden treats) is incredibly effective in conveying the monotony of advanced age. Osmund's letter to the editor being published, or Mrs. The way the narrator pauses over some trifle among the elderly characters (like Mr. When the elderly crew is excited someone they know has died because it means they get to leave the hotel and socialize, it's funny but it cuts deeply. But the droll, ironic tone keeps it buoyant and poignant. The humiliation of age and decay is this novel's primary focus. And there are even a couple fart jokes.īut it's all just so sad. The characters are nutty and interesting. Concerning an elderly woman's last days, spent in a hotel, this novel tackles heavy subject matter with the lightest touch. Palfrey at the Claremont is a funny little novel that manages to devastate. Both infancy and age are tiring times.'Įlizabeth Taylor's Mrs. Names slip away, dates mean nothing, sequences become muddled, and faces blurred.

'Every day for an infant means some new little thing learned every day for the old means some little thing lost.

Mrs palfrey at the claremont book review