1961

The Forgotten Smile by Margaret Kennedy (1961)

| Jane @ Stumbling Beyond Eden Rock

We have been having some long overdue building and decorating work done, and one of the consequence of that has been that I have had to pack a good number of my books away. While I was going through the difficult process of deciding which books I could part with for a few months, a book by Margaret Kennedy caught my eye, and I realised that I hadn’t read any of her work for a very long time.

That had been deliberate, because I only have two novels left and I hate the idea of running out, but once the idea of reading them had lodged in my head I couldn’t shake it our again; and the idea of visiting a Greek island while the weather raged outside was simply irresistible.

The Forgotten Smile is Margaret Kennedy’s penultimate novel, and it is mainly set on the island of Keritha, Like many of her novels, it tells the separate stories of a number of characters whose paths cross and it moves backwards and forwards in time.

Doctor Challoner is an elderly academic, and he is in Greece and on his way to Keritha to collect an inheritance from his aunt and uncle. His grand-father’s second wife had been Greek, she and her two children had never really felt at home in England, and so when her husband died she took her children home. Freddie and Edith had lived there for all of their lives, happily and rather unconventionally. Though Doctor Challoner had no feelings about them and no interest in their home or their island, he was set on recovering certain family heirlooms.

While he is on his way, he encounters Selwyn Potter, a former student, who was academically brilliant, good-natured, but socially awkward. Doctor Challoner wasn’t overly pleased to see him, he didn’t think to ask what he was doing there or why he had become a school-teacher, but as he could not speak modern Greek he took him along to act as his interpreter.

The sky was dazzling and the sea was a very dark blue shot through with streaks of green and bronze like a peacock’s tail.  The distant islands, scattered about the horizon, were pale lilac and pink in the triumphant light.

When the two men reached their destination, Selwyn was surprised to be greeted by Kate Benson, whose children he had known at school and who he had always considered to be the best of mothers. She remembered him somewhat less fondly, as the clumsy young man who had broken her coffee table, but each would both discover that the other had an unexpected journey to reach that particular point in the world and in their life.

The two histories that unravel are both expected and unexpected.

Kate felt disregarded by her husband and underappreciated by her children. It might be true that she had not handled their transition from children to adults with lives and relationships of their own as well as she might, but even if that as the case they had judged he harshly and thoughtlessly. That was why she decided to do something that she had always wanted to do – she went on a cruise. It as not a great success but it took her to Keritha. She went for a walk while the rest of her fellow travellers sat on the beach, she met some old school-friends – Freddie and Edith Challoner; they invited her to stay – and she did. A visit home showed her that her absence had consequences that she had not foreseen, and that maybe that was no longer her place in the world.

Selwyn had thought that he had found his place in the world. He had never thought that he would but he did, and then he lost almost everything through no fault of his own.

He had been, she perceived, too happy for safety.No refuge was left to him in a world which had completely disintegrated.

These two stories of separation and loss, rediscovery and recovery, are set against a very different story.

Keritha was a tiny island, away from the tourist routes and largely untouched by the modern world. The old ways still prevailed,  it was pagan and it was primitive, and that gave it its own particular magic. Alfred and Edith appreciated that, Kate and Selwyn appreciated that, but Doctor Challoner would have none of it; because though he loved the classics he had no interest in anything at all beyond his chosen sphere. He considered the island backward and the islanders barbarous; he just wanted to collect his inheritance and leave, but on Keritha – and particularly for the heir of the man who had been dubbed ‘Lord Freddie’ the world just didn’t work like that!

In the early stages of the book my overriding thought was that I was reading another very good Margaret Kennedy novel. Her writing was elegant and evocative, she  was clear-sighted, she was psychologically acute, and she made these characters and their worlds – both Keritha and England –  live and breathe.

I was particularly taken with the two leads, Selwyn and Kate. I knew these people, not well because Margaret Kennedy is an author who shows rather than introduces her characters. I understood them and I empathised with them.

There is a little comedy here, among the more serious and complicated emotions, and though it isn’t something I usually associate with her work I have to say that she handled it very well.

As I turned more pages I my thinking shifted, because I was so very impressed by one thing : how cleverly she was gradually revealing different aspects of her characters and their lives. I didn’t think about how she might end this story, but when I reached the end I thought that it was exactly right. It was a final chapter for this book but not a final chapter in the lives that were illuminated in its pages, and I appreciated it was left open with just a little suggestion of what might happen next.

‘The Forgotten Smile’ is both recognisably Margaret Kennedy and distinctive in her body of work; and thought I cannot say that it is her very best work I can say that there are things her that she did as well – and maybe even better – than she had before.

Bel Lamington by D E Stevenson (1961)

| Jane @ Stumbling Beyond Eden Rock

When you want to escape into a book that is warm and engaging, as I did a little while ago, you could do well to turn to the work of D E Stevenson.

You need to choose carefully, because her books are rather variable, and think that I chose well when I chose this one. I warmed to the heroine from the first, and I appreciated that the book held many of the ingredients that D E Stevenson used regularly – and very well – mixed with more that enough other ingredients to make it distinctive.

This isn’t her best book; it isn’t a book that would stand up to very much scrutiny; but it is mid 20th century romantic fiction done rather well.

Bel was orphaned when she was just three years-old; when her mother and father died in car accident; but she had a happy childhood with an aunt who loved and cared for her. Sadly, her aunt died when Bel had only just finished growing up, and the small income that they lived on died with her. That meant that Bel had to start earning her own living, and so she trained as a secretary.

Her first job was as a typist in a London shipping firm, Copping, Wills and Brownlee, and she was quickly promoted to the position of secretary to junior partner, Ellis Brownlee.

She was promoted because she worked diligently, she watched everything that was going on and thought about it, and she took a genuine interest in what she was doing and the work of the company. Sadly – but maybe inevitably – that made her unpopular with other female staff members, who all seemed to be marking time until they didn’t have to earn their own living, or bitterly accepting that they had to work and doing as little as possible. Miss Goudge, who oversaw them all, would be a terrible thorn in Bel’s side, and she really had no idea how to deal with that.

The author had a good grasp of the dynamics of an office, there are characters and incidents that I know will ring a bell for anyone who has worked in an office, and I felt for Bel as she succeeded and as she struggled.

Away from work, Bel was lonely. She had come to London knowing no one at all, and she hadn’t found a way of making friends. She spent all her evenings and weekend in her small flat, and the tiny rooftop garden she has created outside her top floor window became her greatest passion.

A handsome young artist named Mark discovered Bel’s garden when he when he wad out on the roofs outside his own top floor studio-flat. Bel took the arrival of a strange man in her home rather more calmly than I would have, but I put that down to her background and her upbringing. He was charmed, they became friends, and that led to his painting of Bel’s portrait.

Mark invites her to parties, takes her on outings, and for a while it seems that Bel’s lonely life is over. But Mark’s interest waned as quickly as it had grown up,  and he moved on without a backward glance. Bel wasn’t quite heartbroken, but she was disappointed and unhappy at the prospect of returning to her solitary, lonely life.

Luckily she was persuaded to attend the unveiling of her portrait, and it was there that she bumped into an old school friend, and they quickly discovered that they were kindred spirits.

Louise was only child of a widowed doctor, she had no need to earn her own living, and she was every bit as happy to have Bel come and stay with her as Bel was to escape London and stay with her in the country. Her father was delighted with the friendship; not just because he thought that Bel would be a good influence on his warm-hearted but rather flightly child, but because he was a kind and thoughtful man who was pleased that he and his daughter would be able to help and a young woman who wasn’t having the easiest time of it.

The drawing of this friendship was lovely.

Louise was disappointed that Bel couldn’t join her and her father on their annual holiday in Scotland, but she understood that her friend couldn’t take time off while  Mr Brownlee has left on an extended overseas business trip; and so she was greatly surprised when her friend did come to join her.

Something had gone terribly wrong, and Bel had fled.

Scotland was a wonderful refuge, but would it offer Bel a new start or would travel south with Louise?

The Scottish scenes and characters were well done, but I found nothing that I hadn’t found in more than one of the author’s books before.

This book had a well drawn cast of characters, well evoked characters and situations, and a lovely heroine.

I enjoyed that set-up more than the rather predictable playing-out; but the ending was exactly right and I will probably pick up the sequel when I want to to escape into a book of the kind that D E Stevenson did particularly well.

No Signposts in the Sea by Vita Sackville-West (1961)

| Jane @ Stumbling Beyond Eden Rock

This is Vita Sackville’s West’s last novel, and it is everything that a last novel should be. It speaks of a life drawing to a close, it is elegiac and it is haunting.

Edmund Carr was a journalist, who had risen from humble beginnings to become a political columnist for a leading newspaper, and to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and move in elevated social circles. When his doctor told him that he only had a few months to live, and that the end would come suddenly and with little pain, he decided to take extended leave and travel on the same cruise ship as Laura Drysdale.

She was war widow, she moved in the same social circles as him, and he had come to care about very deeply. He had not – and would not – speak to her, or to anyone else, about his feelings, or about his illness. He simply wanted to spend as much of the time that he had left as he could in her company.

The story is told by Edmund, and it reads as in internal monologue, but it is in fact his journal, discovered after his death; with the letter he had obtained from his doctor setting out the facts of his medical condition, in the hope that there would be no confusion or misunderstanding of he was taken ill.

The characterisation was pitch perfect, the voice always rang true, and the author’s choice to tell the story this way was entirely right.

As the ship sails towards warmer climes, Edward settles contentedly into life on board and, as there are only a few other first class passengers, he and Laura fall quite naturally into each other’s company. If she remembered had any idea why her friend had decided to take the same trip that she had spoken about, she gave no indication; but as Edmund spent more time with her his feelings for her deepened. He continued to keep his own counsel, but he began to think about how different his life might had he given less attention to his work and more to the pleasures of society and the possibility of love.

Edmund’s equilibrium was disturbed when he sensed that another man might have a romantic interest in Laura. He and Colonel Dalrymple had been on friendly terms, but seeing him in her company made him terribly jealous, and he struggled to cope with his feelings and feared that he would say or do something that would give away his feelings.

Good manners, and well-bred English reticence prevail, and the friendship between Edmund and Laura endures. The watch the sun setting from the deck, they dine together on an island visit, and they watch a lightning storm from her private balcony in the early hours. And as they talk he learns much more about her. She knew little of life outside her own class and milieu, and yet she had nursed in the war and she had worked with the French resistance.

There is little more that that to tie this story to a particular point in history, and not a great deal to tie it to a particular part of the world. The weather is warm, and a string of islands slips by to mark the passing of time, but no more than that was needed.

I want my fill of beauty before I go. Geographically I do not care and scarcely know where I am. There are no signposts in the sea.

The conversations that make up a large part of this book are beautifully realised, and they say much about the characters and much about the author who created them.

The writing is lovely and wonderfully evocative, so that reading really felt like being on that voyage and seeing all of the sights; with the leisurely progress of the boat perfectly matched by the slowly unfurling narrative.

It was such a pity that some prejudicial attitudes towards other cultures and classes caused quite unnecessary turbulence. In books from earlier periods I could accept them as being of their age, but not in a book from the sixties and in this story.

But the story and the characters will stay with me.

It is a simple story, informed by the author’s own travels, published just a year before her death and surely written at a time when she had to consider her own mortality;  and the portrayal of Edmund’s realisation of his feelings, and of his resolve to not tie Laura to a dying man, is done with delicacy and with grace.

The resolution of the story is perfectly judged; and the right ending to a short novel – and a writing career – that says everything the needed to be said.

China Court by Rumer Godden (1961)

| Jane @ Stumbling Beyond Eden Rock

This book tells the story of the days immediately before and after the death of a Cornish matriarch, who knows that, given the chance, her children would sell her beloved home.

That alone would have made me pick up the book, because I love the author, and because I love that this story is set in china clay country; a part of Cornwall that I have rarely read about in fiction, though it is an important part of the county’s history and heritage.

The narrative moves back in time to tell stories of previous generations who lived there, not in the way of most novels that have stories set in different points in time, but in a way that feels completely natural and right. Sometimes a thought, a sound, a sight can spark a memory can stir a memory; sometimes of just a moment of time and sometimes of a whole story of people, places and incidents long past.

That is exactly the way this book works. Rumer Godden did this same thing in an earlier work, A Fugue in Time, and in this book she works with more characters, more history, and – I think – rather more refinement.

I was captivated with the story of the elderly matriarch, who was cared for by a lady not a great deal younger who had been her companion; by the story of a granddaughter she called to her side, who had loved the house as a child but had not been there for many years, as when her mother was widowed she had decided to return to her native America, and pick up the threads of her career as an actress; and by the story that played out when daughters returned, with husbands in tow, to look over what they thought was their rightful inheritance.

China CourtThat story became so real to me, and so did many stories from the past. I’m thinking of Eustace and Adza, who bought the house and established the dynasty. I’m thinking of Lady Patrick, the daughter of a wealthy and aristocratic family who eloped with the son of the house and struggled with her changed circumstances, her faithless husband and two young sons. At first I couldn’t warm to her, but as I learned more of her story I came to empathise with her. And I am thinking of the wonderful Eliza, who seemed to be cast as the spinster daughter, and who overcame her anger about her situation to set the course of her own life, by insisting that her brother formalised her position as housekeeper and by pursuing her own interests – especially the books that she loved dearly – when her time was her own.

It felt quite natural to move between all of those different stories. When I bought my book I had made sure that I had a family tree to refer to, but I didn’t need it for very long at all’ such was the skill of the author at bringing the house and its occupants to life.

She wrote so beautifully, she picked up exactly the right details, and it really did seem that she had walked through that house, unseen, among all of those different generations; understanding the pull of – the importance of – China Court, as a home and for its own sake.

There was such skill in construction of the story and in the telling of the tale. The present was written in the past tense and the past was written in the present tense, which might sound odd but it was wonderfully effective; and I loved the way the two could switch, sometimes even in the same sentence, feeling completely natural and right.

One character had a story in the present and the past. Ripsie was a child from the village and she became the constant companion of Lady Patrick’s two sons, Borowis and John Henry, while they played outside but as they grew up she found that she was often excluded from their world. Because she had fallen in loved with Borowis, who was brave and spirited, she clung on. When she finally realised that he didn’t love her and that he didn’t even see her as someone who had a place in his world, the steady and sensible John Henry was there to catch her before she fell. They married, and when Ripsie became the lady of the manor she slipped into the role so easily that she could have been born to it.

I’m reluctant to pick a favourite from so many wonderful characters and stories, but I think I have to say that I loved Ripsie and her story the best of all; both for her own sake and for what it said about the best and worst of society and of human nature.

The antique Book of Hours that she treasured and kept with her always provided headings for each chapter; a lovely reminder of the spirituality that is threaded through so many of Rumer Godden’s books, a lovely thing in its own right, and as I came to the end of the book I realised that it was also an integral part of the story.

I also realised that the author had chosen the pieces of the history of the family and the history of the house that she would share carefully and cleverly; to illuminate the past, and to show how the past can shape the present and the future.

I did miss the other pieces of history that weren’t shared; and though I understand that not everything could be told, the characters I met and the stories that I learned are so alive in my mind that want to know and understand more.

My only other disappointment was the ending. The reading of the will, the fallout from that, the discoveries that were made, were all wonderful; but there was just one thing that I couldn’t quite believe, the resolution of that was rushed, and the very final scene was unsettling and has not dated well.

There were so many more things that I loved, and those are the things that have stayed with me since I put the book down.

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett (1961)

| Jane @ Stumbling Beyond Eden Rock

Do you have a book – or a series of books – that you keep in a box marked ‘ I want to read, it, I know I’ll love it, but I have to wait for the perfect moment’ ?

I did – I still do.

And I say that because Dorothy Dunnett’s books used to live in that box, but they don’t live there any more.

I began to collect those books when they were out of print in this country; because I have always loved historical novels, and because the author of these historical novels was so lauded. I have come across many readers who read and re-read her books, and I have a very clear memory of a bookish television programme, some years ago, where I saw an author speaking so articulately of how she and her husband would eagerly await publication of each new book, and read aloud to each other.

I was sure that I would love them, but I hesitated to start reading because there were so many thick books, because I heard they were filled with complex plots, and a wealth of abstruse literary and historical allusions.

In the end though, the arguments for reading became overwhelming.

I picked up the first book, and now I can tell you that I loved it.

It was complex, I’m quite sure there were things I missed, I wasn’t always entirely sure what was going on, but none of that mattered. I was captivated, I had to keep turning the pages, and it was lovely to be able to listen to someone so much cleverer than me, who was so articulate, who had so much to say about a subject that she loved, talking at very great length …

The story opens in Scotland, in the 1540s.

The king’s widow, Mary of Guise, rules the country as regent for her infant daughter, who the world will come to know as Mary Queen of Scots. England has a boy king, Edward VI, and his realm is governed by the Lord Protector. He wants the Queen of Scots to be the bride of his King, so that he will rule over the whole of island of Great Britain. His troops are making forays into Scotland, and some of the Lords of that country are inclined to throw their lots in with the English. The rulers of the great European powers are watching, eager to see what will happen, and thinking how that might benefit, what they might do to steers events.

That’s an interesting point in history that I hadn’t considered too much, I don’t remember finding in fiction before, and it was lovely to follow a story in that period, so richly evoked.

That story was sparked by the dramatic return from exile of Francis Crawford of Lymond: the younger son of a noble family, a lover of wit and game-playing, and a former galley-slave. It gradually became clear that he was on a mission to prove himself innocent of a six-year-old charge of treason, that he believed that one of three distinguished Englishmen held the key to the success or failure of that mission, but that to have any chance of success he must avoid a great many interested parties who want to take him captive – or worse.

That’s as much as I can say about specifics of the plot.

That plot is labyrinthine; and as I found my way through that labyrinth I saw so many different scenes, and I realised that there were so many different aspects to this story; there were twists and turns, shocks and revelations, tragedy and comedy, high drama and quiet reflection. Some things became clear, other things remained opaque, and often it was revealed that things were not as they seemed at all.

The construction was so clever, and I loved that there were so many small details that could have slipped by unnoticed but would prove to be vitally important.

The depth and the complexity of the characterisation is extraordinary; and a cast populated by fictional characters and historical figures lived and breathed.

The world that they lived in is as well evoked; and I loved the cinematic sweep as well as perfectly framed close-ups. There is so a wealth of detail that makes up the bigger picture, and I could see no flaw in it; everything felt real and everything felt right.

The use of language is wonderful, and the love of language is clear; it may be too much for some in Lymond’s verbal flourishes, but I loved them and I think that anyone with a love of words, anyone who regrets that some many lovely words in the English language are underused, would love them too.

The success or failure of this book though, rested firmly on the shoulders of its central character. Francis Crawford of Lymond could be infuriating, but he had such charisma that I had to follow his story. He is incomparable, and the nearest I can come to any sort of comparison is to say that if you can imagine that the Count of Monte Christo had not been an honest sailor but an educated, cultured player of games …

It took a little time for him to grow on me. I realised that there was a lot of back story to account for the way he chose to make his entrance, the ridiculous risks he took, the terrible antipathy between him and his elder brother; but even taking all of that into his account there were times when he struck me as juvenile and spoilt.

As the story progressed though, he seemed to become more mature, and I came to realise that his history had left him damaged and deeply troubled. His relationship with one particular woman swung me completely to his side, even though I still wasn’t entirely sure where right and wrong lay in this story.

As events unfolded I became more and more involved, and though I didn’t want the story to end I did want to know how it would end.

That this is the first book in a series gave me a clue, and how I envy those readers who found this book when it was first published who didn’t even have that one small clue.

Dorothy Dunnett played fair, but oh how clever she was. The drama kept on coming, even after a dramatic shift into a courtroom, and it was only at the very end of the book that I could stop, draw breath, and realise what an extraordinary journey this book had been.

There is so much that could be said, and I feel that I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I understand now why so many people love this series of books, have read and re-read them, have written at length.

I’d love to do the same, I wish I’d started sooner, and now it’s time I started reading the next book.

In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor (1961)

| Jane @ Stumbling Beyond Eden Rock

Elizabeth Taylor wrote wrote beautiful, subtle human dramas with such lovely clarity. The stories that she told were wonderfully insightful about people and their relationships; and they reward close reading because she had such a wonderful eye and ear and because she was so very good at making every detail exactly right – and worthy of notice.

This  novel – her eighth – is about love. It shows different kinds of love, it shows how love can change; and it shows how love affects one family and the people around them, and how it changes them and their lives, over the course of one summer season.

Kate was a young widow and she has recently married for the second time. Her new husband, Dermot, has tried a number of careers without ever finding the right one. He isn’t particularly driven, but he wants to do something, to play the role that he feels he should be playing.

Kate and Dermot are happy together as a couple.

‘Separated from their everyday life, as if in a dream or on a honeymoon, Kate and Dermot were under the spell of the gentle weather and blossoming countryside. They slept in bedrooms like corners of auction rooms stacked with old fashioned furniture, they made love in hummocky beds, and gave rise to much conjecture in bar parlours where that sat drinking alone, not talking much, though clearly intent on each other.’

Family life though, brings complications

Dermot has a good relationship with Kate’s son, Tom, who is working his way up in his grandfather’s business and having fun with a string of girlfriends; but he struggles with Kate’s daughter, Lou, who is back from boarding school for the holidays and hates that somebody else is taking her father’s place and making her mother the subject of gossip.

Kate is fully aware of Dermot’s weaknesses, but she accepts them, and tells herself that they can be – they will be happy.

But it becomes clear that their marriage has fault lines.

‘On the way home they quarreled – or, rather, she listened to Dermot quarreling with an imaginary Kate, who supplied him with imaginary retorts, against which he was able to build up his indignation. Then, when they were nearly home, he began to punish himself, and Kate realised that the more he basked in blame, the more it would turn out to be all hers; her friends, for close friends of hers they would become, would seem to have lined up to aggravate him, and her silence would be held to account for his lack of it.’

Dermot doesn’t share many of the interests and attitudes of Kate and her friends; he feels inferior, he resents that, and he resents that he can’t quite establish himself in the position he wants.

This becomes clear over the course of the summer.

In the first act of this two act drama family life simply plays out. Lou is drawn to the young local curate and she spends her summer caught up with parish affairs and events. Kate’s Aunt Ethel, who lives with the family is caught up with her own concerns, but she is worried about the family and she quietly does what she can for them.

In the second act Kate prepares for the return home of her best friend’s widower Charles and his daughter Araminta. They have been away since his wife died, they have never met Dermot, and Kate worries that the presence of an old friend, with so much shared history and so many common interests will unsettle him.

‘They were walking in circles around each other, Kate thought – both Dermot and Charles. When she had introduced them, Dermot had shaken hands with an air of boyish respect, almost adding ‘Sir’ to his greeting, and Charles seemed to try and avoid looking at him or showing more than ordinary interest. Although he had not met him before, even as far away as Bahrain he had heard stories, and Kate, writing to tell him of her marriage, had done so in a defensive strain, as if an explanation were due and she could think of no very good one.’

She is right, and, quite unwittingly, Tom and Araminta, upset the precarious balance of Kate’s family. Tom is fascinated by Araminta, an aspiring model, who is beautiful, cool and distant; the first girl he wants but cannot win. And the return of her own friend unsettles Kate as well as Dermot.

There is little plot here, but the characters and the relationships are so well drawn that it really doesn’t matter.

The minor characters are particularly well drawn. I was particularly taken with Ethel, a former suffragette who wrote gossipy letters to her old friend in Cornwall but also had a practical and unsentimental concern for family; with Dermot’s mother, Edwina, who tried to push her son forward and was inclined to blame Kate for his failings; and with the cook, Mrs Meacock, who experimented with American food and was compiling a book.

They brought a different aspects to the story, as did Lou’s involvement with the curate.

There are so many emotions here, including some wonderful moments of humour that are beautifully mixed into the story.

‘Love was turning Tom hostile to every one person but one. They all affronted him by cluttering up the earth, by impinging on his thoughts, He tried to drive them away from his secret by rudeness and he reminded Ethel of an old goose she had once had who protected her nest with such hissings, such clumsy ferocity, that she claimed the attention of even the unconcerned.’

I believed in these people and their relationships; they all lived and breathed, and Elizabeth Taylor told all of their stories so very well.

The summer is perfectly evoked, and this book is very well rooted in its particular time and place.

I loved the first act of this book, when I read that I thought that this might become my favourite of Elizabeth Taylor’s books, but I loved the second act a little less. It felt just a little bit predictable, a little bit like something I’ve read before and I couldn’t help wondering if the  dénouement came from a need to do something to end the story rather than simply being a natural end.

It was love though, and I can explain away all my concerns by telling myself that stories do repeat in different lives and that lives often take unexpected turns, and can be changed by events that are quite unexpected.

I’m glad that I finally picked this book up, and that I have other books by Elizabeth Taylor to read and to re-read.