I used to get upset with some ladies in a reading group I was in, who would quickly and easily posit that they didn't "like" a book. And these were the accepted "great" works that we were reading. "Empathy!" I would insist, "we read for gaining empathy," Well, I had to give myself this little talk, on starting this book. I found the beginning commentary on the end of life depressing and unbearably sad. "Why are we reading this book?" I asked myself. Ah...."empathy" was the answer that came to me. And I've been able to continue on in that light, and, really it's become a page turner.
Re listening as I impatiently wait for next episode. So masterful are Taylor’s nuances and subtle humor that beg a reread. My book club groans at my choices of “melancholy little tales,” but I’m bringing it to the table anyway.
I enjoyed the comparison to The Remains of the Day, which I just read earlier this summer. Melancholy is the word I spent all of this week’s reading trying to think of 😄
I wish I'd had that comparison in mind as I read. I think it would have helped going into the book to know that it was that kind of a melancholy story.
1. Was anyone else confused about the age of Rosie when we first met her? "a young girl" "her tiny shoes" "little patent leather shoes". I thought she was a YOUNG girl - like 8-12. That seemed like such a weird start. Then when he was hitting on her and she is obviously older, but is it supposed to be giving creepy vibes? And why does she have grey hair?
2. Near the end of Ch. 10 "Cucumber sandwiches she had had for tea repeated." - what does that mean? Did she bring them up a bit, from her little jolt while walking?
to have food "repeat on you" is a Britishism. It means the food is "tasted intermittently for some time after being swallowed as a result of belching or indigestion."
I, too, am appreciating this sad yet humorous portrait of the lives of older people. Many of the lines call to mind people I know (or knew), even my own mother although she was as far removed from an upperclassmen English woman as you could get! And although there are not a lot of books focusing on the elderly, I think British screenwriters are not reluctant to write about them. One of my all-time favorite sitcoms was "Last of the Summer Wine" about the trouble old men could get into with nothing but time on their hands. Does anyone remember it?
I'm glad y'all brought out the way Taylor is playing with the Harold and Maude-ness of it all. Because those lovings feelings don't die as we age, but they can take different forms. I like the varitety of ways love is portrayed in this book--all a little selfish, all a little true.
I don't know Harold and Maude. But I recently watched a Judi Dench and Maggie Smith movie called Ladies in Lavender in which Dench plays an elderly spinster who falls in love with a young man whom she and her spinster sister Smith have found shipwrecked on the beach and taken into their home. In lesser hands Dench's character might have been silly or creepy-- and to be fair she's got a hint of both-- but Dench's performance is transcendent. Her character, Ursula is fully human and sympathetic: tragically experiencing love for the first time in her life, knowing it can never be requited, feeling that she is silly, and yet unable to squelch the passions of her heart; but trying heroically to suppress them anyway.
I’m so grateful you read aloud the Chinese restaurant passage. So much of that interaction was inscrutable to me, because not much was said. It seems that both Ludo and Rosie were being self-protective, and at the same time working to assert or construct some kind of identity (contrasting themselves from their parents for example).
I used to get upset with some ladies in a reading group I was in, who would quickly and easily posit that they didn't "like" a book. And these were the accepted "great" works that we were reading. "Empathy!" I would insist, "we read for gaining empathy," Well, I had to give myself this little talk, on starting this book. I found the beginning commentary on the end of life depressing and unbearably sad. "Why are we reading this book?" I asked myself. Ah...."empathy" was the answer that came to me. And I've been able to continue on in that light, and, really it's become a page turner.
Re listening as I impatiently wait for next episode. So masterful are Taylor’s nuances and subtle humor that beg a reread. My book club groans at my choices of “melancholy little tales,” but I’m bringing it to the table anyway.
I enjoyed the comparison to The Remains of the Day, which I just read earlier this summer. Melancholy is the word I spent all of this week’s reading trying to think of 😄
I wish I'd had that comparison in mind as I read. I think it would have helped going into the book to know that it was that kind of a melancholy story.
I have two questions:
1. Was anyone else confused about the age of Rosie when we first met her? "a young girl" "her tiny shoes" "little patent leather shoes". I thought she was a YOUNG girl - like 8-12. That seemed like such a weird start. Then when he was hitting on her and she is obviously older, but is it supposed to be giving creepy vibes? And why does she have grey hair?
2. Near the end of Ch. 10 "Cucumber sandwiches she had had for tea repeated." - what does that mean? Did she bring them up a bit, from her little jolt while walking?
to have food "repeat on you" is a Britishism. It means the food is "tasted intermittently for some time after being swallowed as a result of belching or indigestion."
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/187765/american-equivalents-of-repeat-on-to-describe-food
I think she burped.
I also thought it was a little girl. It was a strange introduction to her for sure.
I, too, am appreciating this sad yet humorous portrait of the lives of older people. Many of the lines call to mind people I know (or knew), even my own mother although she was as far removed from an upperclassmen English woman as you could get! And although there are not a lot of books focusing on the elderly, I think British screenwriters are not reluctant to write about them. One of my all-time favorite sitcoms was "Last of the Summer Wine" about the trouble old men could get into with nothing but time on their hands. Does anyone remember it?
So grateful to be introduced to this book.
I'm glad y'all brought out the way Taylor is playing with the Harold and Maude-ness of it all. Because those lovings feelings don't die as we age, but they can take different forms. I like the varitety of ways love is portrayed in this book--all a little selfish, all a little true.
I don't know Harold and Maude. But I recently watched a Judi Dench and Maggie Smith movie called Ladies in Lavender in which Dench plays an elderly spinster who falls in love with a young man whom she and her spinster sister Smith have found shipwrecked on the beach and taken into their home. In lesser hands Dench's character might have been silly or creepy-- and to be fair she's got a hint of both-- but Dench's performance is transcendent. Her character, Ursula is fully human and sympathetic: tragically experiencing love for the first time in her life, knowing it can never be requited, feeling that she is silly, and yet unable to squelch the passions of her heart; but trying heroically to suppress them anyway.
I’m so grateful you read aloud the Chinese restaurant passage. So much of that interaction was inscrutable to me, because not much was said. It seems that both Ludo and Rosie were being self-protective, and at the same time working to assert or construct some kind of identity (contrasting themselves from their parents for example).