Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont

This was such a distressing book -- and I don’t mean that as a spoiler for the ending, but as a description of the characters and the writing style. At the same time, it’s also so very very good. An excellent novel!

Mrs Palfrey is an ageing widow who has enough money left to avoid the disgrace of a nursing home: she can take a room at the Claremont, a formerly respectable residential hotel located on a thoroughfare in London. While the hotel does cater to fly-by guests, the permanent residents are all in the same boat as Mrs Palfrey: approaching death, proud, but barely wealthy enough to maintain the status-quo.

From this setup, Taylor develops a genuinely distressing story. The elderly residents live all but fake lives: their social show more dynamic revolves around pretending that nothing is changed, that they are doing fine, that money is no object. And so their interactions become merely sustained hypocrisy where real relationships become impossible. Any family member who is still alive and who might visit becomes someone to boast about -- bonus points if they’re young and handsome, then one can really lord it over the others. The inmates are too set in their ways to admit even to themselves that their bodies are inevitably betraying them -- their appetites and their mobility cannot be seen to have diminished. In short: one-upmanship is the sole source of social status, and appearances must be kept up. This entails the saddest, most distressing aspect of the book: there is no recourse for these people, no help to be got, and it is all their own fault.

Taylor’s writing in this book is wonderful: its matter-of-fact dryness cuts mercilessly through the pretense. Taylor frequently feels compassionate about her côterie of end-of-life losers, but has no patience with their sham lives: she trains her scalpel squarely on the social niceties that cover a less-than-perfect reality, and she does so with an attitude that ranges from impish humour to absolutely brutal editorial comments that leave people's hypocrisies bare and raw. The style reminded me of Arrested Development, where characters say or do one thing, and the narrator bluntly contradicts them for tragi-comedic effect.

No part of this novel is sentimental; on the contrary: it is almost harrowing in its unflinching directness and desire for honesty. And the writing is so confident, so perfect in tone and delivery. My SO and I now have both read this, and our summary of this book goes “It’s so sad! But so good! But so sad! But so good!”. show less

Markedly both delightful and depressing. Taylor's attention to detail and her gentle depiction of these characters was lovely to read, but at the same time, the loneliness and quiet despair of the residents of the Claremont was painful, sometimes almost to the point where I didn't really want to continue with the book. I was also slightly annoyed--maybe not with these particular characters, because Taylor paints them so sympathetically that I can hardly be cross with them, but maybe just in general--at the sort of "waiting to die" attitude of Mrs Palfrey and the others. I can't quite imagine getting to my old age and suddenly not being genuinely interested in something--the Claremonters seem only to do things (reading, knitting, playing show more games) because they pass the time. Perhaps this reaction is telling--surely no one expects, at twenty-nine, that she will spend the last years of her life alone, lonely, and bored. Perhaps it is precisely that annoyance in the young with such an attitude in the old that makes Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont so poignant. show less

I know I read [Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont] in the early or mid-80's, thirty years ago. In that time I have made the shift from being a young woman to being on the threshold of late middle age and so, naturally my 'identification' has shifted from the younger character, Ludo, to the elderly residents of the Claremont Hotel. I always hugely liked the lively sort older person from an early age, loved the stories they had to tell and enjoyed just being with them in a way that I know is unusual. It's been hard to handle in the last ten years as all but one or two of these marvelous people have died (let alone my parents) and I've struggled with a sense of being horribly betrayed and overwhelmed by so many departures - also wondering now show more how to fill that void - how to cultivate the interested younger parties. I am lucky and do not have a 'sporty' daughter who cares nothing for the things I care for. She told me just this morning she thinks of me as being about thirty (which is a remarkably accurate for how I feel inside). I also attended as faithfully as I could to my mother after she had to be in a 'residence' and the whole atmo of the Claremont took me back in a most excrutiating way. The loneliness and the sense of just waiting to die, of being of no interest or use to anybody......In short, I found this a hard hard read this time around. As a novel - it is a near flawless piece of work, with an ending that manages to be simultaneously shocking and also darkly funny - Laura Palfrey has managed to shroud the end of her life in a certain mystery and we know by now that she would have enjoyed that immensely. The blow though of the daughter's callousness took my breath away. This was the toughest Taylor yet, about the most unsentimental view of aging I've ever encountered.

For those of you who want to find a host of superb reviews go to the Taylor Celebration thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/144120#t and poke around. More than a few Virago-ites have marvelous blogs. show less

"Time went by.
It could be proved that it did,
although so little happened."

That's the way time passing feels to the small group of aged pensioners staying in London at the Claremont Hotel as residents. But certainly a lot more living (and some dying) was going on there than one would suppose.

Taylor writes with razor-sharp humor and aching pathos. She captures snippy comments, suppressed feelings, painful indignities, careless family ties, lackluster days. She captures the sad lamentations for spouses who left this earth first, bad hotel food, tight budgets, snobbery disguised as banter, and the outdated unchangeable personalities. And mostly, she captures the fear of further downward trajectories felt by every one of the small group show more of aged residents.

But Taylor gives more than old age tropes. These aged Claremont residents are still very much alive in spite of diminishing bodies and diminishing capital. Certainly those constraints force upon them a lot of mere watching and waiting. Yet the inflow of experiences and emotions continues, just as it always has. The heart of the residents' true tragedy is to experience this latter part of their lives among strangers.

And life now has both too much and too little time for them.

Taylor is such a consummate writer that it's delightful to pick up on the little tidbits of her astute observations. You certainly don't have to be an old geezer to enjoy this novel. It's witty, it's clever, it's sensitive, and it's mightily entertaining.

It's remarkable how she can write about even obnoxious people with compassion, though clearly depicting how obnoxious they undoubtedly are. (I'm thinking also of her novel Angel I read last year.) No one, not even our Mrs. Palfrey, is without irritating faults--that stoicism, that stiff upper lip, always proper to the point of bland remoteness. Yet, in contrast to that outer controlled exterior, Mrs. P also takes delight now and then in creating tiny amounts of calculated shock; she also instigates a major deception! Behaviors which prove she is not as bland and proper as presents herself to be. Even so, in Taylor's deft writing we see Mrs. Palfrey and all the other Claremont regulars as deserving our sincerest empathy. Just as real people in our real lives deserve. Just as we hope we deserve, especially in our old age.

All of us live the majority of our lives with a carefreeness, even carelessness, as if we ourselves will always be meaningful, part of the hubbub, the center of our warm cocoons, looking vaguely toward when we will enjoy the rich harvest of a life well-lived. Then, one day, the hubbub is elsewhere. Our well-stocked pantry is more bare than we imagined. We are alone.

Gently Taylor takes us to that place, where in spite of all, life's fundamental desires don't age out: we have the same longing we've had all our lives, to be important to someone who cares about us. show less

Read this in one sitting. Totally enjoyed it. Even some laugh-out-loud moments. Much better than 'Angel'. A group of elderly people live in a hotel off the Crompton Road, where they more-or-less await death. Taylor's descriptions of the main characters are full of empathy but never wallowing. The story is told by the seasons of the year, but it doesn't feel like a plot device. Rather, the change in weather represents the steady marking of time, as Mrs Palfry and her companions idle away their final years. I really liked the unlikely friendship between Mrs Palfry and Ludo, who stores up all his images and thoughts about old ladies for his book. Mrs Palfry's guilty enjoyment of her secret life, not revealed to her daughter and real show more grandson, makes this a gem.

I love this book so much that after borrowing it from the library I just had to buy my own copy. And on second reading, I still think it is one of the most perfect gems of understated ferocity I have ever come across. show less

Mrs. Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel to live out the final months of her life. She is a reserved, dignified English woman whose husband has passed away. We meet the other residents of the Claremont, and because of Taylor's use of internal dialogue, learn much about them, and about Mrs. Claremont. Mrs. Palfrey has a daughter living in Scotland, and who doesn't have time for her mother. Her son, Desmond, Mrs. Palfrey's grandson, lives close to the Claremont, but also cannot be bothered to visit his grandmother. One day, on a walk, Mrs. Palfrey falls and is rescued by a young man, Ludo. They develop a friendship, and in a clever plot twist, he acts as Mrs. Palfrey's grandson when he visits her at the Claremont. The book's strength show more is its ability to tap into the loneliness of the elderly, and the indifference of society towards them. A sad book, but I loved it. Loved the movie version, also. show less

One of the expressions my mum used all the time was “better late than never”. That thought was echoing around my head when I eventually picked up Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. So many of my trusted GR friends have given it wonderful reviews and Robert McCrum included it in his top 100 novels of all time (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list).
Written in 1971 the novel follows Laura Palfrey as she moves to the Claremont hotel in London. The hotel houses several elderly people. They are all wonderfully flawed and utterly believable characters. Mr Osmond is both a mason and a misogynist, Mrs Burton is a soak, Mrs Arbuthnot a gossip and a snoop. Mrs Palfrey spend much of her show more life in Burma as the wife of a colonial administrator. Dignified and stoic, she is deeply ashamed of having no visitors. Her only daughter lives in Scotland and her grandson shows no willingness to see her. Enter Ludo (a very playful name) a young aspiring author who helps Mrs Palfrey after she takes a tumble on the street near the hotel. They form a beautiful friendship and Ludo more than makes up for her absent family.
Elizabeth Taylor wrote with both compassion and mordant humour but avoided being mawkish or cruel. I cannot think of any other writer that chronicles post war England better. I originally gave this a 4-star rating because the ending felt a bit like falling off a cliff face, but this is a 5-star book.
So yeah, I was late to the party, late to appreciate the subtle genius of Elizabeth Taylor. But my mum was right, better late than never. show less