Customer Reviews

The Other Elizabeth Taylor

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Having discovered the books of Elizabeth Taylor several years ago, I have wanted to know who is this wonderful writer of fiction. Until Nicola Beauman's enlightening biography was published, it was hard to find the answer to this question. An article in 'The Atlantic' some time ago gave glimmers but it wasn't enough. Then came along this
biography. I am glad that Mrs. Beauman made sure that the book was published with a spine that allow the book to stay open. I just could't put the book down. She shows us an Elizabeth Taylor as a woman ahead of her time, who has to make compromises in order to write the books she wanted to write. Mrs. Beauman gives us insights into the characters of the works of fiction using the life experiences of the author. I will be rereading several of the novels, with fresh eyes, thanks to this important biography

What a delightful literary biography! I have only read E. Taylor's At Mrs. Lippincote's but will certainly look for more of her novels after reading this well-researched biography. I knew next to nothing about Taylor as a person, but Nicola Beauman has altered the situation for me and for many who may know this author's novels but not the woman herself. Of particular interest: the recounting of Taylor's early years, her relationships with Elizabeth Bowen and other writers of her time, and the biographer's access to so many of Taylor's letters which she quotes extensively. The revelations about Taylor that are so displeasing to her children may prove in time to be notable in light of her achievement as a novelist. Beauman's biography will serve to increase appreciation of Taylor, a complex and fascinating woman and a fine novelist. It also provides a good hard look at the British literary world of the 1950s and '60s of which Taylor was a part yet not a part.

Naturally admirers of Elizabeth Taylor will want to read the *only* biography of her, and will not be dissuaded even if its author is a little dim-witted. I must say, though, that I began the work with great interest and became increasingly frustrated. Its limited viewpoint is evident even in the title. "The Other Elizabeth Taylor," really? "Anne Brontė: The Other One" is also an insulting title but at least Brontė was being compared to her own sisters (and fellow novelists).

Elizabeth Taylor never wanted to be the subject of a biography and as you wade through this work you get a lot of Nicola Beauman but not a lot of Elizabeth Taylor. Beauman's big idea seems to be that if Taylor had only let Blanche Knopf revise her manuscripts and if she had only gone to more literary luncheons, she would now be required reading in universities, just like Virginia Woolf. Beauman also doesn't care much for the novels Taylor wrote after 1953 (not that she has much to say about any of her novels, apart from plot summary).

On the plus side, you do get some amusing glimpses from Taylor's letters--only a few though, because most of Taylor's correspondents burned her letters at her request. To me, the high point of the book was the revelation that Taylor and Robert Liddell had a running joke "that Olivia Manning might be the person asked to edit their correspondence for publication. They therefore did not date what they wrote, in order to muddle her, and--apparently--made frequent little jibes at her expense." "We also added little notes of great stupidity and insensitiveness that we imagined her as contributing," explained Liddell at a PEN talk in 1987, "and are trying hard to survive her."

Nicola Beauman reports in her acknowledgements that Taylor's son and daughter are "very angry and distressed" about the book and have asked to be disassociated from it (some acknowledgements!). She also includes (as a footnote on page 279, which speculates about the origins of the character of Dermot in _In A Summer Season_) a statement by Taylor's daughter: "most of what Nicola has written is untrue and the rest hurtful to many people."

Again and again like the regular tolling of a bell throughout the biography comes the complaint that Taylor did not receive enough recognition in her lifetime and that her novels are not much read these days. (It may have distressed the biographer more than her subject.) I went to bed rather downcast by the repetition of this idea, however in the morning I was more cheerful and thought, "they are wonderful novels and will always be enjoyed by people who like that kind of thing."