Wonderful prose but I can’t relate
Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 1999
I have a confession to make. I don’t like these stories. I recognize the strengths of Taylor’s story telling – the elegant language, the depiction of emotional tension in simple things, the clear progression of ‘story’ or theme from setup to inevitable conclusion, but I can’t get past a deep dislike for his characters. This is a personal failing. Taylor’s fiction depicts a world that is inhabited almost exclusively by a certain class of affluent, white, middle class city dwellers whose lives are bounded on the upside by manners, fashion and ritual (in imitation of an upper class to which, presumably, they aspire)and on the downside by a stiff reticence and correctness of behavior to insulate them from their inferiors (not only their black servants but also whites of a lesser social and economic standing). I grew up in Nashville, TN at a time when this world was rapidly passing away, but I have met people, more than a few, who could have stepped from the pages of these stories, and almost without exception developed a deep antipathy for them. Their overt arrogance which seemed to mask a great fear of the world ‘outside’ always made social intercourse with such people strained and unsatisfying. There is nothing like being politely condescended to to make the recipient want to deliberately break convention and strike through the mask. So it’s personal.
I have read, and reread, these stories enough to see that Taylor’s characters are frequently as frightened of change and the possible corruption of contact outside their little world as I had sensed in the real Taylor-type folk I have met. There is great skill in his presentation of this tension, but it doesn’t lead me to empathize, much less sympathize, with his characters.
Any given person’s response to a piece of fiction is going to be colored by a host of factors over which the author has no control, and no writer ever had universal success at generating the response he desires the reader to have. In the case of my response to Taylor’s stories, I fear that my dislike of the specific milieu (and its inhabitants) that is his chosen subject will forever keep me from a full appreciation of his work.
review of:
The Old Forest and Other Stories
Peter Taylor