Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (1971) by Elizabeth Taylor

🏨 This is my first introduction to the inimitable Elizabeth Taylor, and also the third book for my personal project: #Reading1971, which is the best so far! The previous two were The End of Summer by Rosamunde Pilcher (a pleasant read), and a non fiction by Erma Bombeck: If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pit? (a nostalgic memoir that made me chuckling all the time). At first, Mrs. Palfrey gave impression as a light-hearted tale about elderly people on the last stage of their independence life, but the more you read through, the more you realized it has more than what meets the eye.

🏨 After becoming a widow in her seventy-ish, Mrs. Palfrey decided to move to the Claremont Hotel. In the 1970s, it's not uncommon that some hotels reserved some of its rooms to accommodate elderly residents. These were usually widows or widowers who lived alone. Living in a hotel was not only practical (meals, cleanings, and washings were all taken care of), but it also provided what little of independent and freedom the elderly people could get before the "end" arrive (nursery home, hospital). There at the Claremont, Mrs. Palfrey begins to adjust to this new phase of her life - living at close proximity to the same people and endure their eccentricities day in day out; counting the dull hours until meal times (these are usually the most exciting time for them), and reading or discussing the menu from a board on the vestibule to fill in the time in between meals. 

🏨 Of the little freedom the residents of Claremont Hotel could boast of, is the visits of relatives. Sometimes they would dine at the Claremont, or else they would bring the elderly out for a picnic in the country or others. These are usually great events for them - a treat, which they are eagerly looking forward to. And that's what Mrs. Palfrey is lacking of. She has only one grandson - Desmond - but she has invited him without any response. Mrs. Arbuthnot has been pestering her about this relative, that Mrs. Palfrey do something that she would have never dreamt of. She invented a grandson! Ludovic - or Ludo - is an impoverished and handsome aspiring young novelist, who happened to help Mrs. Palfrey when she's fallen on the pavement on her way from the library. His tender care touched Mrs. Palfrey's heart, and what with her gratitude, and Mrs. Arbuthnot's pestering, she blurted out a dinner invitation at Claremont, with the scheme that entailed. In short, Ludo would act as Mrs. Palfrey's charming grandson Desmond, in exchange of some exciting adventures and free dinners. The scheme is successful... until the real Desmond appeared.

🏨 If you think this a comical novel - a Wodehouse with more subdued tone, perhaps - you're totally wrong. It has a much deeper meaning than just a scheme gone wrong. The major themes are loneliness and boredom that old age bring. It's something young people hardly understand, until they too grow old.

"As one gets older life becomes all take and no give. One relies on other people for the treats and things."

"It was hard work being old. It was like being a baby, in reverse. Every day for an infant means some new little thing learned; every day for the old means some little thing lost. Names slip away, dates mean nothing, sequences become muddled, and faces blurred. Both infancy and age are tiring times."

🏨 The loneliness has nothing to do with the presence of others, but the sense of helplessness, uselessness, that the elderly must endure. To watch how their independence slip away from them; that they become more and more burden for the youngsters; the way people treat them like little child, and worse even, treat them as nonentity. I have been witnessing these in my parents. and now I realize that growing old is a painful business - and it's much mentally as is physically - and that scares me not a little. I wish we have that kind of establishment like Claremont Hotel here in Indonesia, though I doubt if I would be able to afford it - it sounds quite expensive...

🏨 The issue of love or affection is also prominent in Mrs. Palfrey. Elderly people always long for loving care and attention from their relatives, and although Mrs. Palfrey is a sensible and independent woman, she, too, couldn't resist the caring and attention Ludo has been providing her. From the beginning, I have sensed that Ludo's feeling towards Mrs. Palfrey is balanced between amusement, boredom, affection, and professional gain (finding in her a wonderful material for his novel, which he titled "They Weren't Allowed to Die There", from Mrs. Palfrey's own remark. Whether Ludo is exploitative or not, is debatable. I personally think it's normal. Anyway, when you encounter an old lady you didn't know, who knits you a sweater, and gives you money when you need it, do you instantly love her? It depends on so many things, right? And nobody would blame you if you don't. The fact that Mrs. Palfrey truly loves Ludo and thinks he loves her as much, well... it's good for her, and she's not very wrong. Ludo is much kinder (as kind as an artist can be) than her grandson Desmond, anyway. 🏨 As a literary creation, Mrs. Palfrey is definitely a brilliant novel, beautifully written. It was shortlisted for the 1971 Booker Prize, but it's a shame it didn't win one. Taylor's character drawing is flawless; she managed to convey each of their personalities through dialogue, mannerism, as well as their inner thoughts. In the end, I felt like knowing them all for a long time. Of the elderlies, my favorite is Laura Palfrey her self. I loved her no-nonsense and strong character - I hope I turn like her in my old age.. :) I also liked Ludo; he is quite a lovely person. He cared about Mrs. Palfrey in his own way, and I can understand if not all what he'd said or done were genuine; she was nobody of him, anyway. And I understand enough that he's half afraid she would become his burden - which is perfectly understandable. So, you see, this seemingly sweet and unassuming (if you judge from the cover) little novel, turned out to be keeping layers of surprising depth underneath each page. If this do not turn up to be one of my favorites this year, I would be very surprised.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Offshore (1979) by Penelope Fitzgerald

🚢 Set in the 1960s, Offshore is Penelope Fitzgerald's third novel, which won her the Booker Prize in 1979. It tells the story of a houseboat-dwellers community, which was closely inspired by her own experience of living in an old sailing barge moored along the bank of river Thames, at Battersea Reach, London. It was difficult times for her, which was also reflected on this book's characters. If I must sum it up in two words, this book is about restlessness and uncertainty.

🚢 The story opens with a sort of community meeting, which took place at Lord Jim, a barge owned by Richard Blake, who lives there, childless, with his wife Laura. Richard was looked up to as the unofficial leader of the community, partly because of his virtue, and partly because he had been involved in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Lord Jim, a converted minesweeper was also in the best condition compared to the others. Dreadnought, owned by an elderly marine painter called Willis, was in the worst condition with its serious leaks, though Willis was reluctant to sell it, because it meant that he'd have to live on shore with his sister. 🚢 Grace was another barge, owned by Nenna James, who lives there with her two daughters Martha and Tilda. She was anxious to get her estranged husband Edward to move back with them - he loathed living in a boat and chose to live in his friend's house instead. Nenna is the most interesting character in this book, to whom I was rooted for. Interestingly enough, the boat on board which Fitzgerald had been living was also called Grace. Nenna was pestered by Martha and Tilda's school, who claimed that both children were often absent from school, and seen running wildly on the muddy foreshore. Tilda, at least, enjoyed living on Grace, although it's not a good environment for raising children. Especially when their neighbor was Maurice, an old boat owned by a male prostitute, also called Maurice, who allowed his boat to be used for storing stolen goods by his shady friend Harry. There's also Woodie, a retired businessman, who owned Rochester. After Dreadnought sank - the dramatical scene was so beautifully written! - Woodie and his wife took charge of old unfortunate Willis, and let him live contentedly with them - converting Rochester into a sort of boarding house. 🚢 Like I said above, this is a story about uncertainty and restlessness. Even the ending is inconclusive. Normally I dislike this kind of novel, but in this case, I think it fits most perfectly with the whole sense of the novel. I rather like Wikipedia's description of it: "The book explores the emotional restlessness of houseboat dwellers who live neither fully on the water nor fully on the land." I caught the sense of dejectedness of these houseboat dwellers - they were generally frowned upon by the society. And yet, when we dive into their daily lives, they are mostly affectionate people, who wouldn't hesitate to help one another in difficult times. Maurice, for instance, always provides sympathetic ears for Nenna James' worries; Willis is always fond of Tilda; and of course, Woodie and his wife taking Willis under their care, which resulting in their change of plans, is the sweetest of all. Sometimes, one just need to be loved by others, before one can stand by one self - the life in the houseboat community might be that bridge towards brighter future for all characters. At least I wish them all the best. Again, I agree with Fitzgerald for not providing conclusive ending to the story; since it is just a phase that every one of us sometimes must face during our existence. How one would go from there, is one's own choice. Just as the ending of this story, would be how each reader would choose for themselves. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Olive Kitteridge (2008) by Elizabeth Strout

🔴 Olive Kitteridge is Elizabeth Strout's third published book, which won Pulitzer prize in 2009. At first few chapters I asked myself, how on earth could this book win a Pulitzer? It seemed an ordinary literary fiction. But after finishing it, I realized there's the hidden layers beneath the seemingly a book about the lives of some residents of a coastal town Of Crosby in Maine. It is not a novel, to begin with, but a structure that is called short story cycle or story sequence or composite novel - a collection of short stories in which the narratives are specifically composed and arranged with the goal of creating an enhanced or different experience when reading the group as a whole as opposed to its individual parts. [Wikipedia]

🔴 Olive Kitteridge is the main character here, although she didn't always appear as one. Sometimes she's just a passing character that someone mentioned, or just commented upon; but sometimes, like at the last chapter, she became the main character. Nevertheless, she is the connecting element that tied tall the stories together. Olive was a high school math teacher, a cantankerous woman with sharp tongue and abrasive manner. The first story, "Pharmacy", is about her husband, Henry Kitteridge. He's a pharmacist, and had a soft spot for his employee, Denise Thibodeau. At this stage (Henry and Olive were in their 30-ish, with an only son who's in junior high school), I bitterly thought that it's no wonder that Henry is thinking of having an affair with another woman; his wife was always so rude and sharp, either to him or to their son Christopher. But Henry is always a sensitive man, and still loves his wife, despite all that.

🔴 Through thirteen disjointed stories, we followed eventful events of the Kitteridges, as well as some other residents. And as the stories unfolded, I slowly realized what had shaped Olive to be her self. Her past (tragic death of her father and her mother's abandonment) wounded her soul deeply, that I think it had hardened her. Though beneath, she's still a generous and kind person. A bitterness that came during her marriage with Henry, only added the sourness in her. Later on, her perimenopause and menopause stage only made things worse. Her disappointment over her son Christopher's unsuitable (to her) marriage, seemed to be he last straw. And so, she became this unbearable woman.

🔴 On the whole, this hasn't been a charming book to read. It seems that in telling the real lives of people in a town - which is greatly relatable to ours - Kitteridge focused mainly on the dark aspects only; disappointment and disillusionment ranked on top, with bitterness of love (and the lack of it) followed soon. Most of the characters have had hopes and dreams, but more often than not, the opposite happened. It seems that all our adult lives were spent to learn about it, so that in seventies, you'd learn finally to accept things as it is - things that's beyond your control.

🔴 Though this book distressed me a little, I loved the ending - Olive certainly deserves that. She is the epitome of strength, courage, and resilience. I was reminded of what my father had taught me when I was a teenager. When you put an egg and a potato into the same boiling water, they would react differently. The egg would be hardened, but the potato would be softened. Whenever you are having hard times, you can choose how to react, like the egg or the potato. Like Olive, most of us react like the egg; but only a few then change to be a potato in the end. Happiness is in store for the latter!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Persian Pickle Club (1995) by Sandra Dallas

🧵 You might thought that Persian Pickle Club was some sort of a cooking club (I did), but it's not. It is a quilting club of local farmer-wives in a small village of Harveyville, during the Depression-era of Kansas in the 1930s. It's not been raining that year, and the crops were burning up, and jobs were hard to be found. People were hard up, and money were scarce. The Persian Pickle Club was not only a quilting club. They sewed during the gathering, but it's also a place where they exchanged gossips, and supported each other during the hard times. It's a like a beacon during a dark stormy night that gave you comfort and hope; something to look forward to during the dreary days. 🧵 The women would gather once a week in one of the member's house. The host would provide a pattern they're going to quilt that day, and the refreshments. Each member would contribute a piece (or pieces) of fabric that would be sewn in to the quilt. Then they would sew the pieces during the day, and when that's done, they will "frame" it. The "pickle" here is what a quilter calls a paisley fabric. On their first meeting, the members contributed a piece of their paisley fabric, which then made it in the quilt. That's how they named the club the Persian Pickle. And just like the quilt they sewn, their friendship was so tightly bind, that one member's secret would be kept secret forever, even from their husbands. 🧵 Rita was the newest member of the club. She's a town girl, and but for her and her husband's poverty, would not be thinking of living in a farm. Queenie Bean, from whose point of view the story unfolds, quickly became close friend with Rita, who never felt belonged into the club. Through birth and death, fearful incident to tragedy, their relationship grew stronger and stronger, amidst their different background and passion. Rita wanted to be a writer, and during her work as a journalist for a newspaper, bones of a man had been found in the backyard of one of the club member, apparently murdered. The deceased was a scoundrel, and no one shed tears for his death, but the question remained, who'd killed him? And so, when I have thought this was a story about friendship and caring-for-your-neighbor kind of book, a murder mystery was suddenly thrown before me. Not mentioning the fearful incident that has befallen Queenie and Rita one terrible night - who's dunnit?

🧵 Rest easy, though, this would not turn to be a crime novel. The mystery is something that highlighted the solidarity amongst these women. It's clear that whatever happens to one of the club members, she would be protected and taken care of by the others. Her secret would be their own secrets. On the whole, I think this was one of the most satisfying reads I've ever had lately. I loved everything about it, the quilting (you'd feel the soothing effect of the activity although you aren't doing it) and the deep friendship between those women. I loved Queenie's personalities; how she (and her husband Grover) treated the Massies, the squatter or drifter - as people called them. Queenie treated them like a true neighbor, although it's Grover and Queenie who let them stay at the unused shed.

🧵 I loved also how Sandra Dallas had picked quilts to symbolize the beauty of community - you see it, don't you? Different pieces of fabric, with different shapes or colors or designs, sewn together into one beautiful artwork, and how that one artwork represents the love and thoughts, struggles and happiness, of all who's been providing the fabrics and sewing them together? What a lovely, heartwarming story, spiced with a little mystery, and closed with something you wouldn't have seen coming. You know how wholesome it is when a whodunnit story only reveals the murderer's identity on the very last sentence before the end? Well, that's what this book feels too!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five Quarters of the Orange (2001) by Joanne Harris

🍊 My first introduction to Joanne Harris was Chocolat; I knew I have started that book years ago, but couldn't remember whether I've ever finished it. I think not. Either because it's a borrowed book, and I have to return it before I have finished; or it must've been sold while I was reading (I ran an online second-hand book store back then). Anyway, Five Quarters of the Orange, then, became my first book of Joanne Harris which I did finish. It's a big relieve when I had finished it; it's not a bad one, just that I was not in the right mental state to give it a proper credit. It's a complex story of dark secrets, a childish-folly-turns tragedy, acceptance, revelation, and resilience.

🍊 Framboise Simon was sixty years old widow when she returned to her childhood home in a small village on the banks of the Loire. She owns a creperie, serving delicious food she loves to cook; mostly recreating her late mother's dishes from the recipe scrapbook Framboise inherited from her. Although she was born in the village, the villagers thought Framboise a stranger, because she does not dare to use her own name, Dartigen. Framboise Dartigen was only nine years old when she left the village after a terrible tragedy during the German Occupation in the 1940s. This, then, is an intermingled mixture of Framboise's past and present life; how the past affected her present, and how the present helps her to be free from the haunting past. 

🍊 Framboise's childhood is a troubled one. She lived with her widowed mother Mirabelle Dartigen, brother Cassis, and sister Reine-Claude. Mirabelle was a hard woman, who's often mean and cruel to her own children, although she loved them. Her life seemed to be full of hatred and bitterness, and she poured it to her children, whom in turn, hated her too. She's often a victim of splitting headache, which was usually started with smelling non-existing oranges - a fruit she always hated. The title derived from Framboise's idea to trigger the headache on her mother, so that she and her siblings could be on their own; by secretly slicing a tiny sliver of orange - the fifth of the supposedly quarters - to be placed near her mother's pillow. Once she inhaled it, she'd have another spell, and off the children would go. Go where?

🍊 It's during this German Occupation that a handsome German officer who speaks a perfect French called Tomas Leibniz introduced himself to the children. They instantly took to him, but especially Framboise, who worshipped him. Their friendship grew bigger; but unfortunately, also, their risk. It finally led to the tragedy. But Framboise did not quite understand that at that time, and it was now, while browsing through her mother's recipe book, was written snatches of her mother's thoughts, did Framboise finally (almost) fully understood what had had happened.

🍊 Maybe if I had read this five years ago, I would have appreciated it more. Now, it distressed me a little. I was troubled with how Framboise treated her mother - though I could see why. The only person I could like in this book is Paul. I admired his support and friendship for Framboise, and I liked how it all ended. It was a troubling book, but still worth reading, if nothing else, for its beautiful writing.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐