Recent reading

A View of the Harbour
Elizabeth Taylor

Taylor's Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont was one of my favorite reads in recent memory, and A View of the Harbour (1947) is even better. Whereas Mrs. Palfrey revolves almost entirely around its title character, A View of the Harbour is populated by a larger ensemble of characters living in a down-at-the-heels seaside town. The chapters of the book weave their way from one short set piece to another, inhabiting each character's thoughts along the way. Taylor's ability to draw so many vivid and fully formed characters in such a compact novel is, in my reading experience, a rare thing. 

The book's multiple and interconnected plot lines are set in motion by the arrival of Bertram, a retired seaman and aspiring painter, who quickly involves himself in everyone's business. Among those affected by his arrival are the book's other two main characters: Tory Foyle, a divorcee with a wild streak, and Mrs. Bracey, a bedridden busybody. But you'll get to know many others along the way. The drama is understated, the humor abundant, and the writing... simply brilliant. Most of the time Taylor employs an efficient prose style with striking descriptions and convincing dialogue. But once in a while she spreads her wings; I can't think of another writer who could compose a sentence as wickedly yet tellingly convoluted as the second in this paragraph. 

Lily Wilson sat behind the lace curtains with Lady Audley's Secret on her lap, but it was too dark to read. Although awaited, the first flash of the lighthouse was always surprising and made of the moment something enchanting and miraculous, sweeping over the pigeon-coloured evening with condescension and negligence, half-returning, withdrawing, and then, almost forgotten, opening its fan again across the water, encircled, so Lily thought, all the summer through by mazed birds and moths, betrayed, as some creatures are preserved, by that caprice of nature which cherishes the ermine, the chameleon, the stick-insect, but lays sly traps for others, the moths and lemmings. 'And women?' Lily wondered, and she turned down a corner of Lady Audley's Secret to mark the place, and stood up yawning. 

Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neal Hurston

Somehow I had never read this until now. It's a fine and important novel, although in parts ethnography takes over for narrative. The use of dialect lends a music to the dialogue, although I can imagine it would be a challenge teaching it today.

When We Cease to Understand the World
Benjamín Labatut

A very meta mashup of fact and fiction, it was critically acclaimed. The vignettes about 20th-century mathematicians and physicists become increasingly speculative and even fantastical as the book progresses. It left me pretty cold, but your mileage may vary.

The Big Clock
Kenneth Fearing

An enjoyable, well-written noir with a pretty contrived plot. It will definitely get you through a decent plane ride.