A Wreath Of Roses
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Review
'Elizabeth Taylor's darkest novel ... She writes with a sensuous richness of language that draws the reader down the most shadowy paths ... Extremely beguiling. Taylor makes the living moment present, touchable, disturbing, enchanting' Helen Dunmore 'Taylor is a fearsome writer, ruthless in her examination of solitude, and a sparkling chronicler of ordinary lives' DAILY TELEGRAPH
Product Description
Spending the holiday with friends, as she has for many years, Camilla finds that their private absorptions - Frances with her painting and Liz with her baby - seem to exclude her from the gossipy intimacies of previous summers. Anxious that she will remain encased in her solitary life as a school secretary, Camilla steps into an unlikesly liaison with Richard Elton, a handsome, assured - and dangerous - liar.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A strange and chilling novel by Elizabeth Taylor, very different from any of her others: 'Beauty and corruption touch us - at the same time, in the same place ...always the two going hand in hand.'
Camilla is a gauche spinster, on the brink of middle age, who started life on the wrong footing and never got going, never launched herself into love or marriage. Her friend Liz - who allows herself second chances at what she doesn't get right first time - is shakily married to a slightly pompous vicar, but their relationship steadies itself; it isn't perfect, but grows more solid as an institution. The two women are on a week's holiday staying with Liz's old governess.
Desperate for something to happen to her, Camilla begins an incongruous liaison with the only man on the horizon, a handsome liar with empty eyes who is staying seemingly aimlessly in a local hotel ... And the ending is more chilling than anything I could have expected from Elizabeth Taylor.
Camilla is a gauche spinster, on the brink of middle age, who started life on the wrong footing and never got going, never launched herself into love or marriage. Her friend Liz - who allows herself second chances at what she doesn't get right first time - is shakily married to a slightly pompous vicar, but their relationship steadies itself; it isn't perfect, but grows more solid as an institution. The two women are on a week's holiday staying with Liz's old governess.
Desperate for something to happen to her, Camilla begins an incongruous liaison with the only man on the horizon, a handsome liar with empty eyes who is staying seemingly aimlessly in a local hotel ... And the ending is more chilling than anything I could have expected from Elizabeth Taylor.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book thoroughly engaging and read from cover to cover in a day. For a relatively short novel, its characters are deep and carefully painted, and so individual that by the end of the book it is easy to tell which character is speaking just by their dialogue. I finished "A Wreath of Roses" wanting to know each character's future. The descriptions are beautifully unique, and the book has a clever symmetry of events; its plot-lines are skillfully woven together from the start, with each choice a character makes affecting later events. It is not a cheerful read, however, but thought-provoking, giving rather bitter and cynical insights into human nature, the social/ gender roles of the 1940s, and fate itself. Helen Dunmore calls it "Taylor's darkest novel". I'd suggest it's best to read "A Wreath of Roses" if you're already a little acquainted with Taylor's fiction, or even the work of Elizabeth Bowen, which strikes me as similar.
It's also a great book to read if you're trying to improve your own writing: a lot can be learned from Taylor's use of description, dialogue and character.
It's also a great book to read if you're trying to improve your own writing: a lot can be learned from Taylor's use of description, dialogue and character.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
First published in 1949, Elizabeth Taylor's `A Wreath of Roses' is the tale of three women: Camilla, Liz and Frances. The story focuses mainly on Camilla, an unmarried school secretary with her youth behind her, worrying that life is passing her by. The novel is set in an English village during a blisteringly hot summer where Camilla and Liz, an old school friend, spend a month in the country in the home of Frances, Liz's ex-governess. Liz, married to a vicar, has recently given birth to their first son and is finding married life and motherhood somewhat different to how she had imagined. Frances, having given up teaching is now indulging in her passion for art and when she is not painting in her garden studio, she spends her time playing her piano with gusto and abandonment. With both Liz and Frances taken up with their own private lives and worries, Camilla feels excluded and lonely, so when a rather good looking but dangerous and duplicitous man, Richard Elton, takes an interest in Camilla, she finds herself responding to him in a way that she would not have thought possible.
`A Wreath of Roses' is considered to be Elizabeth Taylor's darkest book; amongst its themes are loneliness, self deception, mental suffering and fear, and Taylor writes sensitively and knowledgeably about these. As commented in a previous review of mine, Elizabeth Taylor uses language with a subtle sensuality and writes with compassion and with perceptive wit. Taylor is often compared to Jane Austen, and those who enjoy reading her novels will understand the comparison, but I think she should be enjoyed for her own considerable merits. And there is much that is of merit in `A Wreath of Roses', for the author has not only written an intelligent, beguiling and elegantly structured story, she has also produced a novel with a much darker side that keeps you thinking about it after you have turned the last page.
4 Stars.
Also recommended by the same author: A View of the Harbour (Virago Modern Classics), The Soul of Kindness (Virago Modern Classics)and The Sleeping Beauty.
`A Wreath of Roses' is considered to be Elizabeth Taylor's darkest book; amongst its themes are loneliness, self deception, mental suffering and fear, and Taylor writes sensitively and knowledgeably about these. As commented in a previous review of mine, Elizabeth Taylor uses language with a subtle sensuality and writes with compassion and with perceptive wit. Taylor is often compared to Jane Austen, and those who enjoy reading her novels will understand the comparison, but I think she should be enjoyed for her own considerable merits. And there is much that is of merit in `A Wreath of Roses', for the author has not only written an intelligent, beguiling and elegantly structured story, she has also produced a novel with a much darker side that keeps you thinking about it after you have turned the last page.
4 Stars.
Also recommended by the same author: A View of the Harbour (Virago Modern Classics), The Soul of Kindness (Virago Modern Classics)and The Sleeping Beauty.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Gently Beguiling
Perhaps the best place to start when discussing a novel by Elizabeth Taylor is with the prose: it has a beautiful flowing silkiness and every word sits comfortably within its... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Gregory S. Buzwell
Chilling
A strange and chilling novel by Elizabeth Taylor, very different from any of her others: 'Beauty and corruption touch us - at the same time, in the same place ... Read more
Published on 30 July 2009 by booksetc
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