As with Week One, this introductory bit will be spoiler-free and let’s continue to mark any spoilers in the comments below as other readers join us in mid-month. But next Monday, we’ll edge up to spoiler-territory and settle in there firmly on the final Monday.
Last week we chatted (on various venues, see below) about the main characters, primarily Harriet. Several of you mentioned connections with other heroines, and the sense of parallels between Harriet’s experiences and the author’s experiences, which seemed to suggest a stronger connection between author and character than sometimes exists.
Harriet really is at the heart of the novel. And that’s not surprising for those who are familiar with the author’s work. Elizabeth Taylor once wrote, to a friend, that she was disappointed by letters that were filled with talk of what their senders had been doing: “Just as my very dearest books are those in which people do hardly anything at all.”
One could say that nothing at all happens in A Game of Hide and Seek. Regardless of where one weighs in on that point, however, most would agree that the emphasis of the work is on the characters rather than the plot.
But is that all rooted in Harriet? There has been some discussion about Charles and Vesey, though we could perhaps say more about these men, as they are at the heart of Harriet’s story, as much as Harriet is at the heart of Elizabeth Taylor’s story. But even beyond this trio, what of the many other characters who contribute to the novel’s “real feel”? What of them?
Apparently an editor requested that the author edit the majority of the workplace scenes, which many of us particularly enjoyed in this work.
What if an editor had suggested eliminating some of the minor characters: Deirdre? Joseph? Kitty? Miss Lazenby? Caroline? Hugo? Lilian? Betsy? What would A Game of Hide and Seek be like without one of them?
Must they be included, or could the story have worked just as well without? Could you come to their defense as essential elements in this story, or would you be just as content to see them stricken with an editor’s ink? Could you make a case to rescue even one?
Or, what of the other characters that played such a role in earlier novels, their settings? Mrs. Lippincote’s house, the crumbling estate in Palladian, the harbour, the countryside? Is there a distinct sense of place in A Game of Hide and Seek that seems to play the role of a character?
Next week? Some readers may be joining in the later half of the month, and others may be thinking of re-reading or letting the story linger in their minds?
Stay tuned for some chatter about the two works that Nicola Beauman suggests are influences or works of importance for A Game of Hide and Seek: the short Chekov story “The Lady with The Dog” (available here and lots of other places) and the David Lean film, “Brief Encounter” (which is sooooo lovely and which influenced more than one writer in the VMC series).
And some chatter about the other consideration that Nicola Beauman gives to A Game of Hide and Seek in The Other Elizabeth Taylor.
Do hope some of you will enjoy playing along with these tangents to the work we’re discussing. I’m curious about the connections between the works and A Game of Hide and Seek.
Other event posts: Introduction, Week One, LibraryThing, The Elizabeth Taylor Centenary, Facebook Page.
I was really intrigued by Lilian and Caroline, the former suffragettes who went to prison together. Part of me is intrigued by them as characters and part of me is intrigued by the fact that Elizabeth Taylor decided to include them as side characters and not the main thing. I liked reading about the thoughts in their heads.
Kaggsy, I rather imagined individual readers triumphing individual secondary characters, as though each might have a favourite, but my own view is similar to yours; I now cannot imagine the novel without a single one of them, as each does, as you’ve said, bring out another facet of Harriet’s character. Which isn’t to say that they sketched solely for that purpose; they really do seem to have an implied existence beyond that. Plus, even though obviously the crux of the novel is the Charles/Vesey question (or the Vesey/Charles question), Harriet does live a life beyond those relationships and, although a novel could well be written like that (I’m reading Anne Enright’s The Forgotten Waltz and it seems to be more along those lines), it would have been a very different sort of story.
Some interesting thoughts you’ve given us there. Harriet *is* the centre of the book and in a sense all the other characters revolve around her. Vesey is perhaps a little lightly sketched, but in a sense needs to be as he almost has a phantom presence in Harriet’s life. Charles is solid and stolid by necessity to contrast with Vesey. I do often get the feeling in ET’s work (and this is just occurring to me now as I write) that her male characters are always in orbit around the central female one(s). I was interested in what you said about some of the workplace sections being removed as I found those some of the best parts – it’s a great shame. I think the minor characters added a lot to the book and the way ET dealt with their fates later in the book skilfully evoked the passing of time. I would argue that they are essential to the story as they round out the character of Harriet much more – if she had simply gone from young-girl-with-Vesey to married-women-with-Charles with no transition or signs of another life or other people in her life, the story would have been flat and unrealistic. We all have people in our life who come and go, or stay with us through the years, and these were Harriet’s people – they round the story out and make her more believable as a character. So I would argue for their necessity any day!