Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (Virago Modern Classics) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

When Mrs. Palfrey, a genteel, elderly widow, arrives with her possessions at the formerly elegant Claremont Hotel in London, she expects "something quite different." Planning to stay at least a month, possibly permanently, she prefers her independence in this aging London hotel to living in Scotland near her daughter, who prefers to ignore her. A variety of elderly eccentrics call the Claremont home--an aging "actress," a ditzy busybody, a haughty observer of the social niceties, a woman who fancies herself an ingénue, and one lone male, an expert on all subjects. The residents put up a good front, but their loneliness and boredom are obvious--no one visits them, they rarely leave the hotel, and nothing in their lives changes very much.

When she falls while walking one day, Mrs. Palfrey is rescued by Ludovic Meyer, a struggling young writer. Because of his kindness and her pleasure in his attention, she invites him to dinner, where the residents assume he is her grandson Desmond. Ludo/Desmond is everything that the other residents of the hotel long for--he genuinely cares for Mrs. Palfrey, he listens to her, and he recognizes her value. Having never known a normal family life, Ludo needs Mrs. Palfrey as much as she needs him, and she happily becomes his much-appreciated "grandmother."

As the two develop a close relationship, Mrs. Palfrey reminisces about her married life, teaching Ludo about the many kinds of love and all its pleasures, and he, having failed in past relationships, begins to understand what love means, blossoming under her attention. As Mrs. Palfrey shares her past with him, he takes notes for a story he plans to write about her life and her experiences at the Claremont, where the informal motto is "We Aren't Allowed to Die Here." As time passes and life becomes more complicated for both of them, their relationship is tested.

Filled with hilariously eccentric characters who respond to aging in different ways, this 1975 novel shows a feisty Mrs. Palfrey challenging convention by reveling in her relationship with Ludo. With an unerring eye for the telling detail and the perfectly revealing comment, the author brings universal themes to vibrant life--the passage of time, the aging process, the compromises we make, and our continuing need to be accepted. The author never resorts to caricature as she makes her wry observations, respecting her characters even when presenting them in sometimes hilarious scenes. In this sweetly romantic comic masterpiece, old age is shown as a stage in life, one in which rewards and happiness are more important than the inevitable conclusion. n Mary Whipple

In terms of sheer craftsmanship alone this little novel is a masterpiece--there hardly seems to be a word out of place. But what really distinguishes it is its sophisticated and yet almost oblique take on the many varieties of love. Elizabeth Taylor's setting is a small hotel in London which caters not only to visiting tourists but also to a small group of retired middle-class widows and widowers, who are forced to accept the dark back rooms and have little to do as they wait for death but knit and wait for the change of the evening's menu in the dining room. To this sad last stop before the grave comes Laura Palfrey, who (rare for a Taylor novel) is a genuine heroine in her kindness, sensitivity, and refreshing lack of the silliness or malice endemic among so many of the Claremont's other permanent denizens. Neglected by her only relative in the city, a grandson working at the British Museum, Mrs. Palfrey asks a young penniless writer who helps her after a fall one day to pretend to be the grandson in order for her to save face among her hotelmates--and as she learns to love him for his attentions and goodness to her he also begins to revel in her generosity and maternal care. Despite the repeated praise lavished on this book by other writers I held off reading it for a long while because I feared it would be unbearably sad; but while Taylor does not stint on the emptiness and pathos of her retiree characters' lives, she brings humor and an expansive vision of redemption to the book.

This is the story of the eponymous heroine living out the dusk of her days in the Claremont Hotel on Cromwell Road in postcolonial London. Her fellow long-term residents are other old people who have fallen on hard times, but remain just about affluent enough to avoid a care home. The novel centres on the interactions between them, trying to keep up appearances and maintaining a stiff upper lip until the end. The loneliness and boundless monotony of their lives forms the backdrop to Mrs. Palfrey's astute and witty observations and we share her thrill in a secret kept from fellow guests: the man she addresses as her grandson is in fact a young writer she met in a chance encounter.
Ludo, unlike her real grandson, is a delightful, attentive and interesting young man. He is preparing a novel -"We aren't allowed to die here"- and first draws on their encounters as a form of research, but their friendship grows on the basis of mutual respect and beautiful conversations.
I would not have picked this up if it had not been for a personal recommendation and I was delighted by it.