If you have any inclination whatsoever to read Elizabeth Taylor (and I think she is one of the most marvelous writers I have ever encountered--yes, really, she is that good--and I bet I say that every time I read her and write about her), or if you like short stories (or want to like short stories if you could just find the right author), go find a copy of this book, The Blush. Three stories in and I am hooked. I am already ready to read the next story now rather than wait until next weekend.
I've actually read two stories, but let me start first with "The Blush" which is the title taken also for the book. Either Elizabeth Taylor herself or the editor who put together the collection thought this the best of the batch, but I think I have found another one to call my favorite (so far that is), but I'll tell you about that one in a moment.
"The Blush" is a story about two distinct women who are quite different in situation and temperament yet whose lives are intertwined. Each envies the other just a little bit, one takes advantage of the other and the other discovers the deception in a most embarrassing manner. Yes, that's what causes the Blush.
"They were the same age--Mrs. Allen and the woman who came every day to do the housework. 'I shall never have children now,' Mrs. Allen had begun to tell herself. Something had not come true; the essential part of her life."
Mrs. Allen has everything--a nice middle class lifestyle, nice home with nice things and a trim figure and even someone to come in and take care of the cleaning. But no children. She wanted them so much she could imagine them and would even cry just a little bit thinking about her eldest son going away to school. But slowly over time those dreams fade away.
Mrs. Lacey, however, is the lady to cleans up and when the two women are together Mrs. Allen listens to her grumbles about her children. The children who mope and glower and are too lazy or too dainty to help out. Mrs. Allen can't help but think her own children would never do anything like that. Worse, village gossip has Mrs. Lacey as a regular visitor to the local pub, a place Mrs. Allen has never entered on her own or with anyone else, but then she thinks that with Mrs. Lacey's troubles she probably deserves a bit of a break. The lives of the two women couldn't be more different--one with a life so full of tasks she is tired out and the other with nothing to fill her life but endless pacing waiting for something to happen, which never does.
And then one day Mrs. Lacey tells her she is expecting a baby, even with three nearly grown children another is on the way (and she craves pickled walnuts--and as an aside, I have never heard of such a thing and it sounds like something maybe only a pregnant woman might actually crave?!). The twist is when Mrs. Lacey's husband comes knocking on the door to complain about Mrs. Allen's late hours keeping Mrs. Lacey from home at night as she looks after another woman's children while the couple is out on the town. I'll let you read between the lines, or better yet, nudge you to go read the story.
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I absolutely loved "The Letter-Writers". This is one of my favorite stories I have read in a long time (and I have read some very good stories so far this year). There is a certain melancholy to Elizabeth Taylor's stories, but there is a knowing, too, of our foibles and shortcomings, our desires and fears. I sometimes feel like she has peeked inside my own windows or maybe even inside my mind. I can so sympathize with Emily in this story who is so assured on paper and so interesting and forthcoming, but faced with meeting the recipient of her letters finds that knowing someone in person can be a little bit disastrous.
As she crosses the village on a warm, sunny day she takes in all the bustle and activity, mentally taking note so she can later put it all into a letter to Edmund. The pair have been writing letters back and forth for a decade but not yet have met. He is a writer living in Italy and she an admirer of her work. It would never have occurred to her to write to him, but when she reads an article on Tennyson he had written where he made some conjectures on the poet's life, Emily knows that amongst her father's papers is a letter written by Tennyson that would clear the matter up. Her kindness in sharing is followed by a happy correspondence.
He rarely returns home to England and when Emily travels to Italy she cannot bear looking him up to meet him. "In Rome, some instinct of self-preservation kept her from giving him her aunt's address there."
". . . her letters were a relaxation to him; to her, his were an excitement, and her fingers often trembled as she tore open their envelopes."
I love this quote and I have to share it just because, because I feel much the same way about someone else's writing.
"She was sensitive to what he wrote, that she felt her own reading half created it."
To meet now would be a frightening prospect--"he knows too much about me". How could they start a conversation, or a relationship when she had shared so many personal things with him. Her letters almost feel as though they are a sort of confessional and at a distance all is safe. How would she feel if on first meeting her he might say she is so different than he imagined her.
". . . or their eyes might meet and they would see in one another's nakedness and total loss."
But it is going to happen. Her walk across the village at the start of the story is to buy a fresh lobster for his visit. He has come to England on business and wants to meet her. Her careful preparations are all thrown to the wind when her cat, the moment when she leaves the room, makes a leap for their dinner. She hears the crash and trying to save the last vestige of her careful planning ends up a wild mess when the doorbell rings and she opens it to Edmund!
This is such a wonderful story. And this crushing failure of a visit is so perfectly described and brought to life.
"She shrank from words, thinking of the scars they leave, which she would be left to tend when he had gone."
Elizabeth Taylor lifts the lid off this fearful (frightful) situation and exposes it in all its pain and maybe even possibilities. I won't tell you how it ends, but in Taylor's hands it is always perfectly and satisfyingly done.
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This week's New Yorker story by Fiona McFarlane, "Buttony" (you can read it here-it's quite short) is about a children's game that plays on fears of being left out by your young contemporaries or being taken advantage of or tricked. Buttony is a game where a group of children get in a circle and one stands in the middle with a button. They close their eyes and the child drops the button into someone's hands. Then it is a matter of the rest of the children trying to guess who has it. Who will be picked, and who will be names first as the new possessor or the button--and who will be last. And what happens if no one gets the button. What makes this all the more intriguing is the child in the middle is a sort of golden boy so the story speaks to all sorts of interesting issues. All the more impressive that it took so few pages to tell this story. You can read her Q&A here. McFarlane has a collection of stories coming out this spring, The High Places.
And a few other short story opportunities--you can read James D. McCabe's "Impostors" here thanks to Library of America. If you want something with a technology slant, you can read a free short story by Michelle Richmond called "The Last Taco Truck in Silicon Valley" here. And a new acquisition by me, Miss Grief and Other Stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson. She is new to me, but during her lifetime (1840-1894) she was "considered one of the finest writers of her generation". Her "strong characters, indelible settings, and concerns with passion, creativity and the demands of society are timeless." The description already had me hooked but the fact that Colm Toibin wrote the introduction reassures me just a little bit more.
Maybe I will dip into the Woolson collection for next weekend, but I have "A Troubled State of Mind" by Elizabeth Taylor to look forward to as well.