Elizabeth Taylor, the best-kept secret in English fiction, wrote novels and short stories in the 1950s and 1960s and thus contributed to the nostalgia for that modest period so keenly felt today by those who lived through it. She is an honourable writer; no publicity, no interviews, no mission statements — merely an unwavering production of impeccable work. Writing before feminism became encoded in dogma, she nevertheless had an unfailing and unmistakable female intelligence: wry, observant and discreet. She herself, whatever secrets she may have harboured, is invisible behind the screen of her impeccable style.
Taylor appears to have had no problem with the discrepancy between her utterly conventional life — which encompassed an early marriage, a village setting, the birth of a son and a daughter — and her life as a writer, with its silences and withdrawals. Her short stories bear witness to her industry: the present hefty volume contains over 60, many of them originally published in the New Yorker, and thus no doubt contributing to a picture of a legendary England in the American mind. They are no less startling than much of contemporary fiction, which appears lurid in comparison. This is perhaps due to the infinitesimal distance she maintains between herself and her material, never identifying with her characters and indeed not always sympathetic towards them, but invariably attentive and scrupulous. The result is a complete account of whatever subject she is addressing, so that she is completely confident of her material, a confidence she imparts to her readers.
In ‘Hester Lilly’ for example, her portrait of a frigid but ardent woman, intensely suspicious of her husband’s orphaned cousin, is a story of imperfectly concealed frustration which might well cause uneasiness in unsuspecting readers.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in