Elizabeth Taylor Centenary: Palladian

During February we will read and discuss Elizabeth Taylor’s second novel, Palladian. The description on the back cover reads:

Young Cassandra is alone in the world, her father had just died. When she goes to Cropthorne Manor as a governess, its weary facade and crumbling statues are all that she could hope for. And Marion Vanbrugh is the perfect employer - a widower, austere and distant, with a penchant for Greek. But this is not a ninteenth-century novel and Cassandra's Mr. Rochester isn't the only inhabitant of the Manor. There's Tom, irascible and discontented, Margaret, pregnant and voracious, the ineffectual Tinty and the eccentric, domineering Nanny. Just as Jane Austen wittily contrasted real life with a girl's Gothic fantasies in Northhanger Abbey, so Elizabeth Taylor subtly examines the realities of life for a latter-day Jane Eyre in this sharply observed work, first published in 1946.

In The Other Elizabeth Taylor, Nicola Beauman writes of Palladian:

The title refers to the architectural style of the house in which the novel is set; it warns the reader that the background is the English literary tradition, and that the book is a romantic satire both on the classical tradition and on the Gothic novel -- in fact a deliberate period piece. (p. 158)

Further, she says Taylor was borrowing from Jane Austen (throough the protagonist’s name, “Cassandra Dashwood”), and paying homage to the style of Ivy Compton-Burnett. I’m not familiar with ICB's style, so others will have to comment on that. Beauman seems to believe Taylor has found her voice, saying, “It was to be her typical style: the sadness and pathos mixed with a unique feel for language -- and humour” (p. 164)

What did you think of Palladian, as a novel? And what about Beauman’s interpretation?

This was a 4-star read for me in April, 2011. In my review I wrote:

This novel's description led me to expect a fairly conventional "young governess falls for lord of the manor" story. I should have known better. Elizabeth Taylor does not write conventional novels; she writes deep studies of characters and relationships.

The setting was just as important as the characters; here’s a quote I thought was just beautiful:

The sky looked swollen, as if it held some darker, heavier substance than rain, as if at a finger's pressure it would let down a stained syrup, like the blackberry juice dripping from the muslin net in the kitchen. (p. 124)

When I read it, I definitely did not “get” that it was satire. Not at all.

After enjoying At Mrs Lippincote's so much I am really looking forward to Palladian and perhaps more Bronte references too? Bliss!

Haven't started reading yet so I will be back later in the month.

My copy arrived today and I'm looking forward to starting it tomorrow.

I think I will start Palladian after my current read. I need to read it soon so I can loan my copy to Liz who doesn't have it - despite thinking she did.
Looking forward to it.

#5 whoo hoo - I was going to prod you to get going with it! I still don't understand how I don't have it, yet there it isn't on my bookshelf!

I think I'll start it next, once I've finished The Diary of a Provincial Lady. I just picked it up at the SF library.

I think I'll start it next week; it's a reread for me so shouldn't take more than a couple of late shifts to finish.

I read the first twenty pages yesterday and am already finding it a delight to read. I loved the exquisite details such as Mrs Turner laying down her "speckled knitting" and "lighting a cigarette in a rather amateurish way" and also love that Cassandra sets off for her new employment with the expectation of falling in love with her new employer. There have already been plenty of bookish references and I anticipate more to come.

With regard to paying homage to Austen and Compton-Burnett, as well as borrowing names, there is the gentle irony we associate with Austen but that seems to be part of Taylor's style anyway. I don't see the Compton-Burnett connection yet but it is early days!

Started Palladian earlier today.
#9 I too love those details - also loved the description of the passing landscape Cassandra sees from the train at the beginning of chapter two.

My copy of Palladian arrived today - Ali had kindly warned me about the sad animal bit so I skimmed through that so I know what to expect - at least it seems to reflect character rather than just being placed in there for some kind of bolted-on effect ...

I'm now at chapter six and am interested in the bleak way Tom and his relationships are portrayed which seems to contrast starkly with the wit and literary references elsewhere in the book. I think I've guessed what the issue between Tom and his family is after two heavy hints from Taylor but am not totally certain.

I finished Palladian very late last night. Not my favourite of hers but I did really enjoy it.

http://heavenali.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/palladian-elizabeth-taylor-1946/

Couldn't agree more Ali. Your review says it all and makes my comments on the novel redundant. I read Palladian a few years ago after reading most of her other novels. I was excited by the plot but, on opening the book, found it to be one of her less interesting works.

Great review, Ali. I am planning to reread Palladian as soon as I catch up on my two Early Reviewer books which arrived when I was away. I do remember thinking, "Wow! That took guts!" about the end of chapter 13.

I've just finished Palladian and think it was actually one of my favourites of the four Taylors I've now read.

I think Ali has said a lot of what I think in her excellent review but will attempt to organise my thoughts and say a bit more, over the next day or so.

I have now posted a review on the book's main page.

I enjoyed Palladian very much. I thought the writing was wonderful and that Taylor probably achieved what she intended with the book.

Fabulous review, Dee. I posted a link on the FB page!

Thank you, Laura. I'd almost forgotten about our FB page, I must go and visit!

Have just begun Palladian. Looking forward to this read.

Belva, I took it to bed last night and enjoyed a couple of chapters. Even so, you'll be through before I'm in chapter 5. *sigh*

I'm sad not to have tracked down a secondhand Virago copy, disppointed to have to rely on Amazon instead for a new copy as I really don't think the new covers are anywhere near as evocative as the paintings on the VMCs. Never mind, looking forward to beginning to read as the snowflakes fall.

@ # 21:
Peggy dear, I seriously doubt it. We have a very dear friend who is in her last days of fighting a very hard fight with cancer. The Drs have sent her home with just days left so we are all trying to spend time with the family, help with the grandchildren so her daughters can be there all the time with her and 'dad'. The devastation this disease pulls in it's path is so horrific at times and at other times it is just a peaceful release. That's the way it was with my older sis. I can honestly say that in the last year and 1/2 of her illness, she was pain free and by the time she came to acceptance she was totally at peace and ready. If there can be such a thing as a beautiful death, it was hers. But our friend is still trying to fight it and for her, it is making it that much more difficult. Her girls are telling her that it is okay for her to go but dad is saying: Stay, my love, stay/////////////// You certainly don't know how you will be affected by something like this until it happens to you or yours.
So, anyway.........not reading so much these past few months. I think I made my 100 books read goal last year but I am only reading in bed at this point. I think that when I go to bed tonight I will have to re-read what I read last night. I have no idea what it was other than the intro of the characters. I hope it is a good read for all of us and I will attempt to finish it this month.
I think I am going to give up on some of the group read challenges. Just too much pressure right now.
Sorry I carried on like that. I guess I just needed a bit of a release myself. I so appreciate this lovely group being here.
hugs,
~belva

@#22:
criggall;
I don't believe we have met. Welcome and I hope you are enjoying it here with our little group. Your words caught me when I saw "snowflakes fall". I wish we had the peacefulness of that here right now. So lovely to be reading a good book with the quiet nature of a snowfall. Enjoy.

dear Belva my thoughts are with you, your friend and her loved ones. Cancer SUCKS. I lost my mother to it four months ago. Still can't believe it some days,

>23 rainpebble: & 25 So sorry to hear of your loss errata and your sick friend Belva. That's the hardest thing in the world to go through. My mom died of cancer when I was nine and I was lucky enough to have my dad until two years ago. I still have the urge to call my dad until I realize that he's gone, especially when something good happens.

#10 I loved those landscape details too from the train - very evocative.

#23 #25 and #26 hugs to all. errata - succinctly put - cancer does SUCK. I like your quote from Auden on your profile page. It's hilarious in a sad kind of way. Belva - release anytime here. We're here for you. I think losing a friend must be very hard. Mary - I lost my mother to cancer sixteen years ago now. I still have my father but hate to think what it will be like when he goes.

Hugs across the pond dear friends.....

Just to let you know that my review of Palladian went up on my blog today, and I am 'officially' hosting the Palladian read-a-long as part of the Centenary celebrations in the blogging world, so if you want to come and discuss, please do come on over! I suspect we'll get quite a good debate going!

You can read my review here (beware if you're not yet finished - lots of spoilers!!):

http://bookssnob.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/palladian-by-elizabeth-taylor/

Rachel x

Dear Rachel – Thanks for writing such a thoughtful and perceptive review of Palladian. Most of the literary allusions went straight over my head I am ashamed to say. Having acknowledged that weakness, I must say that I am fascinated by the little things in Taylor’s writing. I could have underlined lots of stuff and want to ask other readers “What does she mean here? And here?” I think her writing evokes a sense of wryness about everything…a sort of marvellous under-statedness….everything looks/feels drab/tawdry/woebegone on the surface but still waters run deep and all that…. So…can I posit a couple of questions?

Let’s take Chapter 17 as an example…in my Virago edition we’re talking about the bottom of page 175 and I quote….”Cassandra went out through the cloakroom, which really was a cloakroom, to the leaf cluttered drive.” What on earth does she mean by that…”really was a cloakroom”….Is it something parochial which means something to English folk that I don’t get? Do you have cloakrooms that are really old sculleries or back porches or drawing rooms? Is it a veiled reference to a comment about her story over all? Aka – this is one small thing you can really believe or hold on to as truth in this book?

Then again – last question I promise (and I know – they are questions about such trivial things and I feel such a duffer)…Page 184 – “Upstairs, Alma took up her slipper to squash a large spider on the wall above her chest-of-drawers, but remembered in time. Luckily, the girl in the next bed leaned over and smacked at it with her Bible.” What did Alma remember? Does Taylor mean the lecture from Mrs Turner and are we to assume that the lecture was about behaving better (and therefore not killing spiders????). I feel sometimes I miss out on Taylor’s humour a bit. There are phrases I don’t quite get – “kicking against the pricks” being one of them.

So that’s the little stuff out of the way…big stuff now. Spoiler alert!! I thought it was very brave of Taylor to knock off Sophie – yes it took me by shock too. I am fascinated that in the children’s books of my youth (aka Violet Needham) parents are often knocked off as quickly as possible to allow the children to go off and have adventures. Here the situation is somewhat reversed – only I’m still waiting for any of the adults to have any fun. What does Sophie’s removal do for the plot? Does it enable Cassandra to truly test Marion’s love for her i.e. as long as Sophie is around, he really only loves her for her child-caring abilities? Does it free Marion from doing the “right thing” i.e. looking after a child that isn’t his in order to protect her innocence?

Finally – Nanny terrified me. Enuf said.

Alex, I admire how closely you read the text! I passed over that reference to the cloakroom without noticing it. The only explanation I can come up with for it is that sometimes a downstairs toilet will be refered to as "the cloakroom" in Britain. My parents did so when I was growing up. So Taylor could be emphasizing that this really was a place where coats were kept, rather than that one had to cut through a toilet to get outside! Also, that the house had such an outdated feature reflecting bygone days of luxury. As for Alma not squashing the spider, that made sense to me because of an earlier mention of some quirk of her character, but I can't remember exactly what that was now and I don't have the book with me. Had she "got religion" perhaps, which would make it ironic that the spider was killed with a Bible?

I too was shocked by the Sophie plot twist; I think it served the purpose of shaking up the status quo and dragging secrets out into the open. But one is left at the end with a sense that little has really changed at all.

On the whole I enjoyed the book, but it did make me long to go and reread Jane Eyre, which was probably not the reaction Taylor desired!

>30 alexdaw:: I noticed the cloakroom reference too, and only understood it because I just read Barbara Pym's Jane and Prudence, in which Jane's husband buys some children's soap for the sink in "his cloakroom" (which made me realize that it was a euphemism).

I think that this is why Alma didn't squash the spider: "She had been writing some very awkward little essays... about Saint Francis..."

I found Palladian to be a hugely claustrophobic novel. I devoured it in an evening, and thought it was brilliant, but it made me want to go run around in the sunshine and travel somewhere just to prove that I wasn't trapped like all of her characters. Cassandra didn't seem to be the protagonist, but rather one more person who got sucked into that horrible disintegrating house where "there is so much time {but} never enough... There is all day long and the night, too; and yet, there is only time to dip into books and turn over a few pages... time is only a landscape we travel across... They hope to make a busy journey of it."

Marion can't do anything or leave the house because of his "neuralgia"; Tom can't get out of his cycle of home to pub to home again; Tinty is spiralling deeper into anxiety; Nanny strengthens her own position by criticizing others; and {SPOILER!!} Sophy's death, I thought, was horribly foreshadowed by her "morebid" fascination with her dead mother and the cemetery. Even Margaret seems destined to return after the birth of her "large male child", which, no doubt, Nanny will be thrilled to care for.

I thought that the introduction and the blurb on the back of the book were utter nonsense, and only detracted from the novel itself. Comparing Palladian to Jane Eyre is pointless, even if Elizabeth Taylor had "satire" in mind when she wrote it. Palladian is brilliant and subtle and creepy, and as much like Jane Eyre as Northanger Abbey is like a gothic novel (which is to say, not at all). Governesses falling in love with (and even marrying) their employers is not an uncommon subject.

And why on earth would Virago introduce the book with an essay that refers to it as "flawed" and "self-conscious"?!? I loathe introductions anyway, since they always have spoilers and ought to be afterwords instead, but aren't they supposed to encourage one to read the book?

The more I read Elizabeth Taylor, the more I admire her writing, and these discussions are making me appreciate each novel so much more. She deserves to be better-known!

32 - Thank you for that. I liked your comments very much. The book was hugely claustrophobic for just the reasons you list. Unfortunately I found the book rather meh for the same reasons you enjoyed it!

I also totally agree with the introduction comment you made. I NEVER read them till afterwards now because they often give away the plot. In this case however I agree with the 'flawed' and 'self conscious' comments. A throwaway book for me but, equally, I could re-read it a few years from now and have a completely different reaction. Book appreciation is so subjective.

I'm with you on the introductions, and this seems to be quite common with VMCs. I usually begin reading the intro but if it looks like it's heading in a spoiler-ish direction, I stop at once!

There are a lot of superstitions against killing spiders, especially inside the house. One of them has something to do with a spider supposedly having hidden the baby Jesus from Herod by spinning a web over him. I assumed Alma just remembered it was considered bad luck to kill a spider, and so left it alone. It made me laugh that the other girl in the room whammed it with a Bible----"so much for THAT superstition", is what I thought Taylor was saying.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I wasn't at all surprised by what happened to Sophy---all those references to chipped statues and the conservatory ready to collapse (and Sophy was clearly sneaking into it despite all the warnings); I knew SOMETHING was going to fall on SOMEBODY, and when she started whirling around the statuary, I saw it coming. And the "revelation" about her father----not surprising either.

I thoroughly enjoyed Palladian, although I didn't find most of the characters very sympathetic. I thought Margaret was very interesting---almost as though she had been plunked down among all these misfits to anticipate the reader's reactions to some of their neuroses, reacting much as I would like to react to the nonsense that goes on in my office at times, for instance. I loved her waspish nature.

35: I assumed that Sophy wasn't killing spiders because of superstition too but I missed the Saint Francis reference when I was reading.

Includes spoilers There was a bit of a twist later about the father revelation though, wasn't there? It seemed to me that it was something Tom's girlfriend had imagined and then Tom picked up on.
I think the thing that shocked me about the book was that immediately after the death of a daughter, someone would marry the person who had been responsible for her at the time of her death! I know it wan't her fault but...

I agree that we're left to wonder whether the fatherhood thing was, or could have been, true. Poor Violet, whatever she may have been, people seemed to make quite free with her memory.

>35 laytonwoman3rd:: The kitten's death, too, was a bit of a giveaway that something bad was going to happen later. Very Hardyesque, like Tess falling asleep while driving and killing the horse at the start of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Violet reminded me a little of Robert Carne's wife in South Riding, in the descriptions of her as this free, rather wild, almost unstable spirit. I wonder if she too might have suffered mental breakdown had she lived after Sophy's birth.

"Very Hardyesque..." oh yes, it was, wasn't it? I hadn't thought of that until you mentioned it.

I've made it just past the sick kitten part. Gack. Enjoying it very much so far.

About the spider: St. Francis tamed a ravening wolf, preached to the birds and fish etc., so I thought that Alma's inability to kill the spider was in response to the lessons about him. However, the other girl whamming it with her Bible was pure fun, Taylor's sense of humour, in me 'umble opinion.

ETA: actually, with further thought, I think it was Alma clinging to her intentions "to take the veil", despite Mrs. Turner's admonitions. The superstition in our family was if you killed a spider, you would make it rain.

I'm really happy to see that the group reads this year are by Elizabeth Taylor, as one of my aims this year is to read more of her work. Looking forward to starting Palladian tonight or tomorrow.

I completed Elizabeth Taylor's Palladian last evening and quite enjoyed it although I thought that for the span at which things went through the story, the ending wrapped up a little rapidly.
Unlike Linda, I didn't see the Sophie demise nor the brother/father thing coming at all. Perhaps I am a little naive when it comes to my books. I did enjoy a book that I did not expect to, so I am very happy about
that. It rated a 3 1/2 for me.
I too, enjoyed Margaret's character. She seemed to me to be someone's 'out of body' experience and plopped down within the story to be the real eyes & ears of all the drama.
I am already looking forward to next month's read.

Finished it this evening and thoroughly enjoyed it. Too bleary eyed to write a review tonight but will tomorrow.

Since the question of Alma and the spider came up, I've been wondering why Taylor included that little tidbit, especially since it appears almost random--a few sentences stuck in between two other scenes. Perhaps it is intended to draw attention to the insincerity of many of the characters--that is, the way they cling to ideas without truly believing them or feeling real emotion. Alma "remembers" to be like St Francis and let the spider live, yet she is relieved when the other girl squashes it; she doesn't want to kill it herself, but she's glad that someone else kills it. This insincerity or lack of conviction reminded me of Cassandra's cool decision to fall in love with Marion (she looks at him and thinks something like "yes, this is the man I will love" {I don't have my copy at hand, so can't quote exactly!}). I felt that most of the characters had this insincerity about them in one way or another. Maybe I'm wrong, but I do think that odd little paragraph is there for a reason! Anyone else have any ideas?

Alex and Rachel, I really enjoyed your reviews. Linda, I agree, there weren't any real surprises but I think that was because Taylor kept clubbing us over the head with things. hehe Sakerfalcon, I was reminded of Robert's wife too!

kdc, I like your take on insincerity, a perspective which hadn't struck me so it was interesting to look at it that way. I got caught up in the inertia of everyone so was interpreting most things that way.

I have written a bit of a review of it on my 75 group thread but don't know how to do those links to the exact spot. Um...does this do it: http://www.librarything.com/topic/129558#3252648
Why yes it does.

>31 Sakerfalcon:, Saker, about the cloakroom: my grandparents' home had a loo in the cloakroom. It was a long, fairly narrow room with the terlet behind a door at one end and rows of hooks all along before you got to that part. I think these were post-Victorian additions in these homes which originally had no facilities on the main floor. They always called it the cloakroom too.

>45 tiffin:: Oh yes, inertia would be a good way to describe it too. They seem to let life happen to them.

#45 Lovely review - inner demons - ooh yes :) and love the way you do your 75 thread too...

I've finally written and posted my review. Phew!

Hurray!

I read and really enjoyed this, though I've mysteriously lost without trace my newly purchased copy of the latest VMC edition with an intro by Neal Mukherjee, my copy is a Chatto and Windus hardback which possibly dates back to 1969 (when they published 3 "impressions" of it and was discarded by Leeds City Libraries in the 1980s (most library books get discarded far more quickly now). Is the intro discussed in this thread that one or an older introduction (some VMCs now have several different intros, I also have two copies at At Mrs Lippincote's, neither the most recent).

LyzzyBee's Review

Tiffin's Review

What delicious reviews!

Luci, the introduction which refers to Palladian as "flawed" must be from an earlier edition as Neal Mukherjee's introduction has a more positive tone.

I looked at the reviews and the introduction referred to is by Paul Bailey. I was looking forward to the Neal Mukherjee introduction but there is no sign of the book turning up. I'm mystified by this one as it hasn't gone out to the shed (my usual problem) and I've looked everywhere in here I can imagine having put it.

Completed Palladian and have read through our thread. Am in awe of so many of these insightful comments and the reviews.

In relation to spiders and cloakrooms!

Apart from the reference to Jesus having a web spun around him to protect him from Herod there is also a saying about spiders in my memory which goes .... 'If you wish to live and thrive let the spider run alive.'

In terms of cloakrooms ..... ….”Cassandra went out through the cloakroom, which really was a cloakroom, to the leaf cluttered drive.” The cloakroom, in the past could mean a room with a toilet in it as well as hooks for coats etc. However - she wouldn't have left the house through a door in a cloakroom like that.

Sometimes, in houses of that age there would have been a back or side door to the house which would have had a narrow corridor leading to it with hooks for coats and be considered a cloakroom. When Taylor writes ''really a cloakroom'' that was the scene I envisaged.

Overall, a fascinating book at so many levels, a bit claustrophobic at times and yet it was that very fascination which compelled me to read on. Her writing is a delight and I love her attention to detail which seems just right for the setting and the period. I am also wondering if the insincerity of so many of the characters relates to the author's view or take on that strata of English society at the time. The sense that we have to be seen to be doing the right thing whilst everything inside is screaming to say or do what my heart is telling me. I suppose they were claustrophobed in their lives.

Neil Mukherjee's introduction did not bother me too much. Looking forward to next month :))

Silly me. Having so thoroughly disliked Angel and The Devastating Boys, I really wasn't paying close attention to the centenary celebrations going on. And then ... I accidentally read two good Taylor books in a row and found I was late for the party. Started Palladian last night. It is a hoot. I have enjoyed tracking all the inside literary jokes.

Now about this pesky cloakroom: the building Cassandra was in, visiting Headmistress Mrs Turner, was a school. Schoolgirls in 1946 often wore a cloak instead of a coat. Even in the 1970s, the girls' school in which I taught featured grey cloaks as outer uniform, and very nice and warm they were, too, as well as full of character. Ergo, the girls kept their cloaks in a cloakroom. There might easily have been a door to the outside as, logically, you were coming in or going out wearing your cloak. My 1972 edition Shorter Oxford Dictionary lists no other meaning for the word, which incidentally was first recorded in 1852. I think ET's nice little joke turns on the fact that cloakrooms often become dumping places for extraneous objects and never see a cloak on a peg, whereas this room had retained its original purpose.

I loved this book, as I love all Taylor's books, purely for her writing, her exactness, her choice of details, her vocabulary. It will possibly not become a favourite because I had no patience with either Marion or Tom, both idle men wasting their lives. The literary references were a delight, from the first line, "Cassandra, with all her novel-reading, could be sure of experiencing the proper emotions..." with all the light irony of Austen - and especially Northanger Abbey of course - to the last chapter, "Cassandra very properly looked 'like a snowdrop' " where the inverted comma makes this nod to Jane Eyre on her wedding day so clearly deliberate. The wedding failed to cure Marion's neuralgia!

This said, there is a very strong whiff of 'Rebecca' about the novel. Published and a best-seller in 1938, when ET was 26, I'd bet £5 she read it. Unlike Max de Winter, Marion Vanbrugh is effeminate and as ineffectual as his aunt, Tinty. (Tinty's daughter, Margaret, has escaped this diffidence, anxiety and hypochondria and built a defence of toughness and spiteful wit which makes her fun to read: "If you discover anything muttering in dark corners, it is Nanny and you must not mind her," said Margaret.) It is clear that Violet/Rebecca wore the trousers in that marriage, aided and abetted by Nanny/Mrs Danvers and enjoying her affair with cousin Tom/Jack while Cassandra/the girl is relatively colourless for a person aged 20. Rejecting the rational of The Classical Tradition in favour of the gothic of The Woman in White, Cassandra is set up to become enmeshed in the quasi-romantic atmosphere of Cropthorne Manor/Thornfield Hall/Manderley.

Mrs Veal seems to have strayed in from an Angus Wilson novel but never underestimate the ability of a minor character to give a good shove to a plot. It's no wonder Tom is down at the pub getting free drinks as soon as it opens, having inadvertently brought about the death of his lover and, eight years later, his daughter. It is not his idea to tell Marion the truth about Sophy, he is pushed into it by Margaret. Though the revelation tips Marion into going after Cassandra (Tom's suggestion) now that the long shadow of Violet has been banished, Tom's flirting with the bride is quite noticeable to Mademoiselle and he clearly has his own reasons for wanting her back at Cropthorne. Perhaps he is hoping that history will repeat itself, so irredeemable is he. So there is something rather sour about this book, but much to appreciate too.

Lovely, Criggall!

>55 urania1:: I'm glad to hear it, Mary!
>56 criggall:: I second the "lovely" comment on this.

Great review Criggall.

Finally heading over to this thread now I've finished reading Palladian. I loved Taylor's writing again; the Neel Mukherjee introduction says of Taylor 'I defy anyone to find one dud sentence in her entire oeuvre.' and from what I've read so far, I'm inclined to agree.

I didn't see any of the plot twists coming so I was pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised as appropriate. I'm not really sure whether you would call it a satire or a parody of a gothic novel although I did appreciate all the Bronte, Austen, du Maurier references. But it felt like more than 'just' a satire or a parody.

I've really enjoyed reading everyone's reviews and comments; next month I will try not to leave A View of the Harbour to the last minute.

As soon as I'd finished Palladian I decided to read it again and I'm glad I did; as with all ET's novels, however attentively you read her, something new always strikes you on a re-read. Re-reading is such different experience for any novel once you know how it ends as it makes your clue-spotting antennae work harder and this was no exception - small remarks or odd looks in the early parts point to Sophie's parentage as well as (more obviously on a first read) the Tom/Violet thing. I even felt more tolerant of Marion second time around. Now for A View of the Harbour.