Elizabeth Taylor Centenary: A Game of Hide and Seek

During May we will read and discuss Elizabeth Taylor’s fifth novel, A Game of Hide and Seek. The description on the back cover reads:

'"I see why you married him. It was sensible of you. It was the best thing you could do, after all. People do marry because they are frightened."
During these summer games of hide-and-seek Harriet falls in love with Vesey and his elusive, teasing ways. When he goes to Oxford, she cherishes his photograph and waits for the letter which doesn't come. Then Charles enters her life, a solid and reliable solicitor, and Harriet stifles her imaginings. With Charles and their daughter, she excels at respectability: its crimson-papered walls, remembered birthdays and jars of lilacs. But when Vesey reappears, her marriage seems to melt into nothing. Harriet is older, it is much too late, but she is still in love with him. First published in 1958, this is Elizabeth Taylor's subtlest and finest work.

Nicola Beauman considers this book “Elizabeth’s most flawless, most nearly perfect novel,” praising her characterizations. The ending apparently leaves much unresolved, something that annoyed the American critics who preferred neat, tidy endings. Knopf, Taylor’s American publisher, asked her to rewrite the book to place more focus on the characters of Harriet and Vesey, and to introduce more “action.” Taylor refused. Elizabeth Bowen, who became Taylor’s close friend and mentor, disagreed with Knopf and praised the book’s authenticity and feeling. Knopf’s handling of this situation caused irreparable damage to their relationship with Taylor.

Beauman also describes the film Brief Encounter as an influence on this work. In the film, a couple’s chance meeting leads to weekly rendezvous in a cafe -- the only way they can spend time together. And, as with Taylor’s earlier work, A Game of Hide and Seek has elements that could be seen as autobiographical, although Taylor always claimed her work came from her imagination.

What did you think of A Game of Hide and Seek? Whether you’ve finished it or are still reading, please share your thoughts.

A couple of speakers at the ET day in Reading said they thought A Game of Hide and seek one of her best.

I've read half of A Game of Hide and Seek, and then stopped to read on in Beauman's biography to the point where she was publishing it, so I just learned about the links you've quoted above. Now I'm eager to read on in the novel to see what awaits!

So far, I can't say that I understand why some feel that it's her best work, but I am finding all of the familiar qualities that have led me to admire her other novels; I'm curious to see what's in store for Harriet next.

>3 buriedinprint:: and I should note, our dear buriedinprint is hosting the readalong on her blog this month!

Thanks, Laura. I've got an introductory post up now, and will get serious about it there next Monday, May 7th, That way, if people have had the book in mind for the read-a-long, but May has snuck up on them, there's still a chance to pull it off the shelf and join in.

I read this a little while ago, in fact it was the first book of Taylor's that i'd read. I've since read about 5 more - i adore her writing - but this book holds a special place in my heart, probably because the storyline resonates a little with my own life. The ending is quite ambiguous, but i like it that way and i can see why Taylor wrote it as such. I won't say much more until others read it. I might dig it out and re-read it. Enjoyed your introductory post, buriedinprint!

I read more last night and I started enjoying it even more past the halfway point; a lot of the first part was obviously necessary to understanding some of Harriet's decisions in her later life, but I was rather wondering where it was all going (but wondering in a good way, because I trust this author to take me somewhere interesting), but it's starting to come to something now. I have about 80 pages left to read.

I was looking in your HTML files to see how to mark spoilers in posts here; that way people can discuss the ending without worrying about ruining it for those who plan to read it later in the month. There's lots of great advice there, but I didn't see that, and my 'net searches haven't yielded an answer yet either. I'll keep looking, when I'm not reading Taylor's novel!

I know what you mean about spoilers - I'm trying to avoid the threads until I've read the book!

On a slightly tangential note, I wonder at what point it's considered best to read a biog of ET? I know that there's been a little controversy over the Nicola Beauman book but the reviews on Amazon seem to indicate that it's essential reading for a proper understanding of her work. What do people here think? Is it best left till after reading all her books and is the controversy justified? Any guidance gratefully received!

I read it at the end of 2009 - when I had only read 3 of ET's novels. It made me want to read her work right away and is a readable well written biography. I must say now I can't remember as much of it as I'd like to - and feel frustrated that I have forgotten so much of it - this is just because I have read so many books since - I can't hold everything in my head. Having seen and heard her adult children talk about their mother though I can understand why they would hate the idea of it - I would if it had been my mother. However I think Nicola Beauman has done the best she could to be sensitive - and I don't believe she was just muck raking or anything. Elizabeth Taylor's husband had given permission for the book after all - and NB waited till after he had died before writing it - it was particularly her son and daughter who didn't like it.

>7 buriedinprint:: how to mark spoilers in posts here ... I've seen two different conventions on LT threads. One is to preface the spoiler with "spoiler alert" in bold and a corresponding bolded statement at the end of the spoiler. The other is to use the "strike" html code to run a line through the entire spoiler, like this.. I kind of prefer the latter because it's so hard to read I have to make a special effort to do so, and it's easier to just skip right past it.

>8 kaggsy:: I wonder at what point it's considered best to read a biog of ET? I started reading it late last year or early this year, and at first I was just dipping in from time to time and trying not to get ahead of my novel-reading. But then I decided to just finish it, because I found it really interesting and insightful. Yes, there are some spoilers, but I was kind of hoping I'd get all the characters muddled up in my head and forget those details by the time I read the book.

>9 Heaven-Ali:: I don't believe she was just muck raking or anything. Same here, I thought the bio was quite tasteful. Yes, it discusses at length ET's relationship with another man, a relationship that she ended in order to keep her marriage intact. I didn't think that bit was at all sordid, and it was a critical part of her life's story. I'm not sure what else was in there that could offend her children, but I guess it did.

>:9 Thanks Ali - I might just get hold of a copy then, especially as it's a Persephone book!! I usually do like to find out more about an author but I'm trying to juggle reading the novels for themselves and not reading too much biographical influence into them before I've read and enjoyed. But it sounds like there may have been emotional conflicts in ET's life that were reflected in her work and so I imagine the biography could be quite interesting.

>:10 I tend to get characters a little muddled too so it will probably be ok!!

Thanks both!

I'm reading Nicola Beauman's biography alongside this novel; I'm actually only 60 pages into it, properly speaking, but I keep flipping around because the images catch my attention and then I see the name of one of the books I've read so I read that part too. I've done this to such an extent that I finally decided it wasn't worth not reading it straight through, despite my spoiler-phobia!

The way in which the works are discussed, which always seems to be in direct relationship to something being discussed in the text that connects to her personal life, doesn't send off my spoiler alarms for the fiction. It's not that major plot points aren't revealed -- infidelities and deaths, they are! -- but somehow the emphasis appears to be on the personal side of things, and if I haven't read the novel/story, the characters' names don't stick with me. Or, at least, they won't still be there by the time I do pick up that work.

And, maybe it's just because I've been reading along with ET months so far this year, so those are the works freshest in my mind, but it seems like there is so much there about these earlier works; I find it a perfect reading companion with AGoH&S.

OK, I'm sold - off to the Persephone website.... ;-)

Started A Game of Hide and Seek today ... Ooh, I'm liking it quite a lot.

So am I - about a third of a way through and it's really, really good. I noticed on an Amazon review someone mentioned about her writing having "a certain coldness and lack of involvement as if the characters and action were viewed through a pane of glass" and this clarified what I had felt after reading A Wreath of Roses and A View of the Harbour - which is not to say that I didn't like them. I enjoyed them immensely and think she's a very gifted writer, but I did sense a certain emotional distance.

But I'm not feeling that with this book at all - the characters are very immediate and well realised, and having reached the section where Harriet has started work I love the characters she is with and their chatter.

Shaping up to be my favourite ET so far!

I read it last month when preparing to go to ET Day, and really loved it. I claimed it was "less bleak" than some of the other early ones - I think it's that pane of glass thing, maybe, as it is actually a bit bleak! I think my review is up on here, have lost track a bit ...

>14 lauralkeet: Here's hoping that you only like it more and more as you turn the pages, Laura!

>15 kaggsy: You'll be very pleased to have the biography, I think. That's interesting what you've said, Kaggsy, comparing the feeling of reading this to reading AWoR and AVotH, maybe readers are simply pulled into this narrative more because of the way we're introduced to Harriet?

> 16 I've been toying with the idea that I notice the bleakness in her work more/less depending on my reading mood and whatever's going on around me in real life, because I thought At Mrs Lippincote's was more on the cozy side when I first read it, years ago, but when I re-read it for January, I noticed a bleak streak there too. But maybe I'm just a moody reader!

>:17 You may be right about Harriet - we are given more of an introduction to the characters in this book than in previous ones. I think you're also right about your state of mind influencing a reading and also of course a re-read can completely change your view of a book - I've read my favourite Colette Break of Day three times now and each time I've got something different from it - often from knowing more about Colette and the context in which the book came into being.

I don't think ET is cosy at all - there's a hard streak in there and she doesn't give her characters an easy time. I shall look forward to the biography!

As soon as it was published, I asked for the biography for a birthday present and, boy, does it blow the lid off the happily married respectable persona, which was all I knew about ET from the notes at the front of the novels I'd been enjoying for so many years. She was so much more interesting than we knew pre-Newman! Having just trudged through the snow of The Tenderness of Wolves how glad I will be to get my teeth into the May book, knowing I'm in sure hands.

Well, I finished A Game of Hide and Seek over the bank holiday weekend and I absolutely loved it. This is the third ET I have read (as I'm still catching up) and I agree with those who say it is her best (so far anyway). I took to the characters straight away and I sensed much more involvement with them from the author. What I very much like about her books is the richness - the descriptions and the settings are so well done, and her words paint wonderful pictures and atmospheres in my mind. She's also generous with the amount of characters she has and they're all essential, never wasted. Harriet's colleagues in the gown shop were beautifully painted and the way ET told us later what had happened to them was masterful.

Her way of dealing with the shifts in time was also excellent and the novel is surprisingly complex. I feel that people have written off ET in the past without really understanding what a clever writer she is - they haven't looked past the surface level. Her artistry is immense.

I found myself caring much more about the fate of the characters in AGoHaS much more than in previous books and I suspect that when I read the biography I might feel that this particular plot has resonances in ET's life.

I also find myself thinking how important these novels by female writers are in a historical sense. So many (including those published by Persephone) are just dismissed as middle class women's novels of no great value but they actually tells us in a very immediate way, and much interestingly than a dull history, what women's lives were really like. Because of the fairly scrappy society we have nowadays where anything goes, we forget the restrictions and the conventions by which women were bound. Nowadays you flaunt your affairs on Jeremy Kyle and nobody cares. Harriet feels eyes watching her all the time and has to come up with elaborate ruses to even meet Vesey for tea and chat.

As for the ambiguous ending - it's very, very moving and beautifully written - I understand why ET wrote it like this and I know how I interpret it - but I won't say how for fear of spoilers!

Very, very impressed with this - thanks, folks, for creating this ET tribute and getting me to finally read her work!

I'm still reading A Game of Hide and Seek and like kaggsy am completely taken with it. I got caught up in the characters right away as well, and have found the storyline to be very moving. In some ways I want to sit down and read non-stop, but the reality is the story is painful. It tugs at my heartstrings and I can only take so much in one sitting.

>18 kaggsy: I have read very little Colette, just the first of the Claudine novels and, recently, for Dewey's Read-a-thon, her slim novel, Ripening Seed. I haven't noted Break of Day before, but I've added it to my TBR now.

Pulling Ripening Seed off the shelf proved to be timely indeed. Admittedly, it's been on my shelf for many years unread, but I pulled it off because it was such a slim book that it seemed perfect for a whole day of reading. (Ironically, it's a terrible choice if what you're looking to do is read as many pages as possible, because many of the passages are so beautifully written that they insist on being read several times!)

The story of these two young people proved such an interesting parallel to that of Harriet and Vesey that I even found myself overwriting parts of their experience with those of Colette's characters at times while reading.

The bizarre push-pull of young attraction makes for some very memorable scenes, and it felt like one of those synchronous reading moments, where it seems as though you're meant to discover a book at just that exact time.

>19 criggall: "She was so much more interesting than we knew" Heheh. I'm only just getting to the "interesting" part now! Funny how much we read into (and don't) the lives of the authors whose books we read. I enjoyed Tenderness of Wolves and would think that AGofH&S would be a nice shift for you...

>21 lauralkeet: That's interesting, Laura. I found myself doing the same thing, more so than usual, reading in small bursts.

How have others found this? Did you rush through? Did you have to take breaks? Was it different than your experience reading other ET works (if you have)?

>20 kaggsy: Just read a snippet in the biography over the weekend that suggests NB thinks that this novel and At Mrs Lippincote's are ET's best. So perhaps you'll be adding that one to your list of favourites too when you get to it.

I think the biography reveals that ET's first draft afforded much more to those workplace characters and events, and I really wish that she hadn't been compelled to edit it. But perhaps for some readers it seemed extraneous?

And I think you're right about how the shifts in time are handled so delicately. I didn't realize just how much of a woman's life had passed until I was finished and looking back on the work as a whole. It snuck up on me! Or maybe I just wasn't paying proper attention...

For those who are game (hee) to discuss this in more than one venue, the first official post for discussion is now live; there are no spoilers and you are welcome to contribute even if you've only read a few pages.

I finished it a couple of hours ago - loved it - just finished my review - but so tired now can barely think straight.

~26 Thank you and have been over there!
In discussion about the game - hide and seek - it has an air of suspense about it. You may also have to squeeze into small spaces or into spaces which are quite apart from the normal or usual living space. There is something about a voyage of discovery about hide and seek. I found myself reflecting upon CS Lewis's wardrobe which was the entrance to a fantasy land.......
Loving this book so far.

I finished it last night and thought it was simply wonderful. My favorite Taylor so far. Still mulling over a review in my head ...

>27 Heaven-Ali: Heaven-Ali mentioned on the discussion post that one of the stories Taylor wrote has some similar themes in it: Goodbye, Goodbye. Anyone else interested in reading this one? I feel rather badly that the stories are excluded from the celebration this year...

>28 juliette07: Thanks for visiting Juliette
>29 lauralkeet: Ohhh, a new favourite: how exciting!

>30 buriedinprint: I'm very keen on the short stories but I see there is a collected volume coming out this year - so I am torn between searching for original greenies or waiting for the one volume!

>32 kaggsy:: I am torn between searching for original greenies or waiting for the one volume!
The completist in me wants to have them ALL!

I confess I've read none of ET's short stories
*hangs head in shame*

33: *Please* don't say that! - I shall now feel totally not guilty in going out and buying the lot!!!!! :)

When it comes to Elizabeth Taylor, I would say that both are in order. I mean, there will be times when you want to sit and read the collected volume (when does that come out? I can't wait), when you are reading on a bench in a garden with a glass of something iced and sparrows flitting in the hedge. And there will be times when you want to slip the skinny little collections into a purse/pocket/backpack, when you are headed to a cafe for tea. It's unavoidable: they all must be had.

Which makes me think: where were you reading A Game of Hide and Seek? In the garden, in the cafe? Or somewhere else entirely?

I read it in several sittings, but mostly at the table where we take most of our meals. We don't have a kitchen table -- the kitchen is all about cooking -- but I can imagine having sat at the kitchen table if only we had one!

21st June it says on Amazon. But I agree about the skinnies - and if they're Virago greens too that's got to be good. *Sigh* - off to search the internet for more books....... ;-))

~36 I have mostly been in bed reading A Game of Hide and Seek!

Certain books do seem as though they should be read in certain places, don't you think? I imagine reading At Mrs Lippincote's in a sitting room crowded with doilies and end tables, A View of the Harbour on a bench with a mug of coffee, Blaming on holiday...

Is anyone planning on starting or finishing or re-reading or reviewing A Game of Hide and Seek over the weekend?

Erm, where did I read A Game of Hide and Seek? I think on various buses going to and from the city centre, and in bed.

Rob has put a message on our FB page - the profile of our Elizabeth Taylor has been raised by the NYRB Facebook page!

Where did I read that long first chapter of A Game? In my stepson's bed in London (he wasn't in it, he was saving turtles on Greek beaches, I just borrowed his flat for a few days in London). I loved it and couldn't give up reading, it's so good on first love at 18, ah brings back memories. Had a copy of The Blush & Other Stories with me too and read the hilarious one about the lock-keeper and his son. Have 2 greenies, didn't know a complete was coming out soon...funny that Virago published 3 vols but not the 4th. In A Game I've got to the part about the gown shop staff reading about waxing away facial hair, then trying it, how they all intimidate the male manager, send the juniors all over town for mascara...lovely fun.

>42 criggall: Criggall - The workplace scenes are so revealing, aren't they? (Love the bit about the turtles.) In a comment on last week's chatter about AGofH&S on BIP, one reader suggested that some of those scenes present Harriet even most adroitly than the scenes with Vesey or Charles. Do you always carry multiple ET novels about with you? I suppose we all should!

If anyone'd like to have a boo, my post for Week Two is live. Still no spoilers for this week in the post, so even if you're just joining in now, or just thinking about picking up the book, no worries.

I still haven't got to this. Just too busy. I might be one of those who reads it a month late :) but I will get to it.

That's the beauty of these LT threads -- they stick around for a long time. It's always kinda fun when an "old" thread pops up with new messages again.

~42 & 43 One of the speakers at the ELizabeth Taylor day, Philip Hensher had a large canvas bag and as he sat down to address us he nonchantly began to 'unpack' all the most wonderful Virago green versions of all of dear Elizabeth Taylor's books - Dee and I were simply green ourselves!!

>45 romain: And it's not a novel that one would want to rush: I'm sure you'll be glad that you've waited for the "right" time to read it.
>47 juliette07: I can imagine all the varied shades of green that you both turned, before finally settling into the proper, well-known Green we all know from our bookshelves.

When Elizabeth Bowen reviewed A Wreath of Roses, she recommended two readings, "then, perhaps a return" because of the novel's "quiet ordinariness".

If you've re-read A Game of Hide and Seek for this discussion, how did your later reading compare to your earlier?
If this was your first reading of it, do you think that you might someday re-read it, or want to?
Have you re-read any of her other novels? Or do you think you'd want to?
Or maybe re-reading is just not your "thing"?

It was atruly wonderful moment - one of those 'I can't believe this is happening' times. He just took them out two or three at a time - I was speechless! They looked like old friends to him - delightful.

51: It was wonderful, wasn't it - and so impressive the way each book seemed to automatically fall to the page he was looking for!

I rented a handful of movies over the weekend (which was a long one in Canada: Victoria Day), including "Brief Encounter", which Nicola Beauman suggests was quite an influence on A Game of Hide and Seek. Have you seen it? More thoughts here.

"Waiting, shivering, for Charles to sort out his keys, she stared before her at the iron knocker -- a hand grasping a wreath of roses. To-morrow -- in a few hours really -- Vesey would stand here. Inside the house, she would have been awaiting, him, tense in the middle of the room, away from the windows, listening for the sound of his banging with that iron ring upon the door. 'If he did not come!' she thought. 'If something happened, so that I never saw him again!'"

It *is* a very intense book - I still have to read the biography to find out how much of an influence her life was on this one!

Anyone still aiming to read this before the end of the month? I've done that myself, with most of the read-a-long titles for this celebration so far.

I always start thinking about it at the beginning of the month, but then there are so many library duedates to grapple with first, and my best intentions work into my reading it in the final week after all!

Not that it matters, particularly, for as Laura said above, these threads are always here for the reading!

Library deadlines are terrible things - I kind of always want to buy the book rather than borrow it because when I feel pressured into reading I don't actually want to read! Having said that, I've placed an embargo on book buying for a little while as I've spent *much* too much on the printed word lately - so I have reserved the Elizabeth Taylor biog from our local library (which is amazingly well stocked with Persephones!)

I finished A Game today, hiding from the intense sun. Very sad yet satisfying ending. My birthday tomorrow, dinner with number two daughter tonight and she has a parcel of second-hand greenies for me - the three remaining titles that I haven't already. Yippee. I'll wait till June to read Sleeping Beauty, which is a re-read anyway.

I agree with those who consider A Game her best, or one of her best. It is more dense (though not irritatingly dense) with what we would now think of as period detail, but of course was just what the world was like in those grimy, grey post-war years. ET presumably supported the Attlee government and its works: doesn't she have fun with the passengers in Harriet's carriage the first time H goes up to London for an assignation with Vesey. And how she invokes childhood memories of those carriages, each with its own door with that special kind of brass handle on the outside and those faded views - they were always faded, must have come faded from the printer's - of Lincoln Cathedral or old houses in Norwich. I can smell the steam train smell again and feel the dusty itchy upholstery on the backs of my thighs as we travelled to Wales or the New Forest for holidays.

Women's choices are presented as so few: respectable marriage, disloyal marriage, shop work, teaching, each with its limitations, its constraints. The only powerful independent woman in the book is Miss Anstruther and she is hardly a role model. The amount of sheer mind-numbing boredom in their lives. But then, in a few years, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis!

Maybe part of the charm is the way the books evoke the period detail. Novels like these record the past, the way women's lives were, the difficulties and frustrations of everyday life. I'm old enough to recall the old rolling stock from my days of commuting when I first started work - I loved how those old carriages were a link with the past and the books have the same effect.

I decided to opt out of reading this one in May as my concentration levels have been low and I was concerned I wouldn't fully appreciate it. I did read four Taylors in March so maybe it was a good time for a break!

I'm pleased it seems to have been a favourite here though and am happy to think I have it waiting for me. And I am now all set for The Sleeping Beauty in June!

@59 It's a great one to keep in your back pocket. If I had it to do over again, I think I'd like to keep it until last, but I'm not sorry to have read it either!

Kaggsy has already left a thoughtful comment on the post about the ending here: please do jump in. (I feel like I've been wanting to discuss the ending from the very beginning of our discussion!) Or, if you would rather discuss your thoughts about the ending below, that's quite alright too. What do you imagine having happened? Are you basing that on something in the text, or is it simply what you would want to have happen for the characters in the story? Would you have wanted a tighter resolution?

#61 Can I just say your blog hosting of this read has been fantastic - don't be surprised if I ask for help/ideas for September when it's my turn.

It *has* been well hosted, hasn't it? Made me very nervous about my contribution to come....!

>62 Heaven-Ali:, 63 But all I've really done is to show up: it's the rest of you that have made that look like anything at all, your enthusiasm for the author's work and for chatting about it amongst like-minded folks. It's been a pleasure!

Any favourite quotes from the novel that you haven't had a chance to share yet, before the conversation officially ends? (Though these threads exist forever of course.)

>64 buriedinprint:: you're too modest, really. You've done a fabulous job keeping the conversation going!

Thanks, Laura, and now, over to you for The Sleeping Beauty! Where did May go?!

I've been waiting to post until I finished the book--but I simply haven't been able to finish it! This is the first ET that has been a slog for me, and I'm not exactly sure why. The bleakness and darkness of it don't bother me--frankly, I'm just finding it rather dull. I don't care about any of the characters, and the only parts I've enjoyed were the shopgirl scenes. After reading this thread, I may try to push myself to finish, but then I'll probably offer my copy up for adoption. I doubt I'll return to this one.

I had the same feeling about The Wedding Group, KDC, but I've always wondered, since, if it wasn't just bad timing. I'll give it a re-read at some point, just to test the theory. Hope you enjoy the others in your ET much more!