Tag: Fiction

“Dominion” by Lauren Acampora

by James Wallace Harris, 8/5/26

There has been much discussion lately about how people are no longer reading for pleasure. Advocates for reading often claim that reading is important because it promotes empathy. Is that really true? I’ve decided to test that.

I read the short story “Dominion” by Lauren Acampora in The Best American Short Stories 2025, but it was originally published in New England Review. “Dominion” is reprinted in Acampora’s new collection The Animal Room. You can read more about Lauren Acampora here.

Roy Fox is a retired CEO of an oil company. “Dominion” is his story, and we follow Roy’s thoughts. Roy spends his retirement collecting exotic animals. He claims he runs a rescue preserve, but in reality, he owns a large private zoo and employs many people as caretakers.

The plot pivots on a girl who is clawed by a serval when Roy invites his granddaughter’s kindergarten class for a field trip.

Now I can’t say that Lauren Acampora’s goal in writing “Dominion” was to have readers empathize with Roy Fox, but if the virtue of reading is to understand people who are unlike us, then Roy is our subject. We live in politically polarized times where politics and wealth make us vilify our opposites.

Acampora doesn’t side with Roy. I believe she works hard to paint Roy Fox realistically and without judgment. However, many readers will see Fox as a narcissistic rich man who constantly rationalizes his wants while sneering down on the poor. But Acampora’s presentation is more nuanced than that.

The story begins when Roy reads through a couple dozen letters that mostly thank him for bringing Molly, the tiger, to Piper’s school. Piper is Roy’s granddaughter. However, one letter, written by a parent, riles Roy:

While we appreciate your good intention in visiting our child’s school with an animal ambassador as impressive as Molly, we’re concerned by the practice of keeping wild creatures captive—

Roy immediately wanted to defend himself by contacting the parent and telling them that Molly was rescued from a circus cage in Peru and now had three acres to herself. Then Roy thinks about how Shannon, his daughter, insisted on sending Piper to a public school when there was a “… panoply of private and Christian academies at her disposal.” He then thinks, “It was doubtful that his granddaughter would gain any special benefit from ‘diversity’ in this rawest sense of the word, this bestiary of scrappily dressed, minimally groomed children.”

Now, is Acampora using these details to criticize Roy? Or faithfully paint her character? Are liberal readers supposed to empathize with Roy? He is spending a great deal of money to “save” animals?

Roy’s favorite lines from The Book of Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” He had it engraved on a stone plaque and put it on the gate to his property.

Roy also recalls a time when his company spilled 10 million gallons of oil into the sea. He rationalized that it wasn’t the largest of spills. And that TV images of oil-covered birds were a PR nightmare for his company. Roy worked to minimize his company’s exposure to the affair, but that led to a fiasco. Marilyn, his wife, had tried to get him to immediately take responsibility because that would be the right thing to do. He refused, but in his mind he admitted she was right.

Are readers to assume that Roy is now spending a fortune on a personal zoo as atonement for the oil spill? Do we forgive him? Are we supposed to forgive him? Or is Acampora only asking us to walk a mile in Roy’s shoes?

The readers are next shown Roy’s love of his animals. Is it genuine love, or do caring for the animals only support Roy’s narcissism? Isn’t he getting off on playing God to them? That Bible quote is a clue. This long paragraph is quite telling.

Roy found himself laughing, too. The truth was that he enjoyed his property staff more than his peers in black tie. The people he hired to maintain the property and care for the animals were fine people, steered by other desires. The concept of ambition—of success for success’s sake—was foreign to them. Satisfied by the simple things the natural world provided, they were unaware of or indifferent to the higher calibers of human pleasures. Roy might have envied this plain contentment, but he understood he was designed differently. His enjoyment of these animals, this life, was necessarily contingent on all that had come before, the challenges he’d met with his own brain power. He enjoyed the animals because he’d worked to obtain them. But unequal as they were, he and his staff were happy together in this Eden. Roy was pleased to share the humor of watching a capybara waddle into the lagoon. Marilyn took delight in the animals, too—especially the camels, whose faces she loved, full of comedy and tragedy. She divined profound feeling in their soft, long-lashed eyes. She was, ironically, the keeper of the household ledger. In a funny swap, she was the manager now, and Roy the irresponsible one in need of reining in. When he’d wanted to build a dolphinarium, Marilyn had unequivocally told him no.

Roy wants to control his image. He decides to invite Piper’s class to the estate as a field trip. He’s sure they will see his side of things. Marilyn agrees with Roy and thinks it’s a good gesture. And the school agrees to come, but under conditions that irk Roy and spoil some of his plans.

Unfortunately, the field trip turns into another oil spill for Roy when a serval leaps at the fence, sending one of its very long legs through the links, clawing Layla, a young girl, on her chest.

After the ambulance and school bus leave, Roy goes inside and lies down. When Marilyn comes home, he tells her what happened; she’s horrified he didn’t follow the ambulance to the hospital and meet the parents.

Marilyn rushes them to the hospital. Marilyn goes right in and physically comforts the parents, while Roy holds back. Readers don’t know if Marilyn is a naturally good person or just good at appearing to do the right thing.

Roy is confronted by Layla’s teenage brother, Jordan. Jordan’s righteousness reminds Roy of his daughter, Shannon, when she was young. Roy feels Jordan spits on him, but the others don’t see it. Roy leaves the hospital room quickly to hide in the bathroom, where he starts getting hives that he scratches until they bleed.

As he and Marilyn near home, Roy calms down. He says he forgives Jordan because he is young. Marilyn informs him the parents aren’t going to sue. Roy tells her they should open up their zoo to the public so they can learn about animals.

The last paragraph is quite revealing.

At last, they pulled up to their gate, and Roy pressed the button that instructed the iron doors to swing inward. The row of elephant heads receded in orderly welcome. The car drove through, its tires purring over gravel, down the row of tamarind trees. The gnarled branches laced overhead, wrinkled pods dangling—and like that they left behind the barbaric world with all its howling demands. This was home, a sanctuary in the truest sense of the word. Roy’s heart eased back to a steady rhythm. All around them, miraculous creations. The flamingos in the distance like so many fresh brushstrokes. The camels, his grave dignitaries. The monkeys chirping merrily, scrambling through the branches, swinging down in bright numbers to greet him.

Has God returned to Eden after visiting Adam and Eve on the outside?

Like all stories, we could interpret this one in a zillion ways. But I wonder if Acampora is asking us to empathize with Roy Fox? If the value of reading fiction is to help us see inside other people, what should we do with this insight?

I believe one reason why Trump won the 2016 election is that conservative folks were tired of being bullied by liberals. For decades, comedians, late-night hosts, comedy news shows, and sarcastic intellectuals felt it was ethical to belittle the right. It’s rather ironic that we liberals have always defended the downtrodden and demanded that political correctness protect the weak from verbal persecution. Yet, the rich and strong were fair game to any kind of bullying. If kindness means protecting the mentally ill from verbal abuse, why don’t we extend such empathy to narcissists? It’s just another condition in the DSM.

I just wonder if Acampora was trying to make us feel bad for Roy. She paints him with all his sins, yet doesn’t her story ask us to forgive him? Am I taking my bleeding-heart liberalism too far? Am I expecting the woke to wake up even more?

Acampora also portrays Roy Fox in her novel The Hundred Waters. A blurb at Amazon quotes the Boston Globe calling Acampora “a brilliant anthropologist of the suburbs.” I’m tempted to read it.

Karen Carlson at A Just Recompense has a much different take than mine. But that’s to be expected. Everyone reads a story in their own unique way. Peter Kirwan at Come to the Pedlar is somewhat like Carlson in analyzing Roy. I agree with them that Roy is a goldmine for psychoanalyzing. I’m more curious what Acampora was aiming at in her storytelling.

The writer at Workshop Heretic feels Acampora is contemptuous of Roy. They certainly provide plenty of evidence to make their case. They also found the story dull. I didn’t at all. They called it a “bog-standard lit fic story.”

Since I have many hours of MFA writing courses (but without the degree), I know what they mean. Modern writers are so well trained in MFA programs that their work has a sameness to it. However, I consider that sameness to be high-quality writing.

And I’ll admit that reading The Best American Short Stories won’t appeal to many readers. But is that because its stories feel intellectual, often by elite writers from the literary establishment?

I have a different take. I refer to it as my “message in a bottle” theory of writing. We all live alone inside our heads, isolated from each other, like living on a deserted island. The best literary stories are distilled insights placed in a bottle and thrown into the ocean. The writers hope that bottle might be found and someone else might see what they see.

If you read this story, let me know what you think. I’ve told a good portion of the plot, but that leaves out the heart of the story. It’s a shame that it’s not online to read for free.

I highly recommend The Best American Short Stories series.

JWH

The Things That We Love

by James Wallace Harris, 6/27/26

Susan and I just finished watching The Spoils of Poynton, a 1970 BBC production shown on Masterpiece Theater in 1971. It’s based on a 1897 novel by Henry James. Mrs. Adele Gereth has collected art objects, furniture, knick-knacks, lamps, glassware, and pottery for her entire life. Now that her son Owen is of age and will inherit the house and everything in it, she is distraught to learn that his fiancée, Mona Brigstock, lacks the taste and refinement to appreciate her treasure. So Adele connives to get Owen to marry someone else.

This is how things used to be. Families clung to generations of cherished things. Before my mother died, she wanted to know who wanted what of her things. She assumed that Becky, my sister, and I, as well as some of my cousins, would fight over her favorite things. After she died, I took the photo albums, my sister took some homemade quilts, and we gave away everything else.

I’m currently listening to Whistler, the new novel by Ann Patchett. At one point, Jonathan, the husband of the main character, Daphne Fuller, leaves her for several days to return home after his mother’s death to sort through her possessions with his siblings. Daphne begs Jonathan to hire an estate cleanout instead of putting himself through weeks of agony.

When Susan’s parents died, we bought their house because Susan and her brothers were too sentimental to let it go. So we lived with Robert and Mary’s stuff for a very long time. It was actually better than our stuff. And when my friend Janis moved to Mexico, we took in a bunch of her stuff. I think of these people by the things they owned.

All of this makes me think about the things I love to buy and own. Isn’t it weird how we love physical objects so intently? Susan and I are terrible at home decor. Our favorite kind of furniture is the La-Z-Boy. We have six single chairs and one double. We also love large screen TVs. My den has a 65″ TV, and her living room has a 75″ TV. We have hundreds of DVDs. And I have hundreds of CDs. I also have hundreds of books.

I don’t lust after cars, guns, or sports memorabilia like normal guys. I’m a bookworm, and books are what I get all sappy about. Susan says when I die, she’ll call Goodwill and Salvation Army and ask them to haul off everything I loved. Sometimes I think I should help her out by giving most of my books away before I die.

I especially love old science fiction magazines. I’d rather have them than diamonds. I would trade them for 19th-century artwork, but I’m realistic enough to know I’m no art collector. Besides, impressionist artworks really don’t go with La-Z-Boys.

The other day, I watched a YouTube video of the actor Paul Giamatti being interviewed about his book collecting. I felt a great affinity with these two guys. These are my people. I cherish crappy old paperbacks, too.

I always marvel when I visit friends and see how they’ve made their houses into museums of the things they admire. It makes me feel bad that I don’t love beautiful home furnishings. Our decor is functional for watching TV, listening to music, and reading.

After I’ve died, and someone is throwing out my science fiction magazine, I doubt they will see the beauty I saw. They won’t know that every issue of F&SF, Galaxy, or Astounding triggers memories. Most people remember the people they knew and the stories about them. I remember writers and the stories they wrote.

I wish I had a manor house and a lifetime of collected treasures like Adele Gereth, including my library of books and magazines. I love my house, even though it’s junky and cluttered. I do regret not having more refined tastes. But I never cared about dishes or doodads. My grandmother collected figurines of dogs. She had hundreds. That was cool. I wish I had gotten one to remember her by – a collie dog.

In Whistler, Jonathan’s first wife collected paintings of rabbits. I wish I had thought of something like that when I was young. Some kind of modest art that people throwing my stuff away could have identified me with. I’ve always admired 19th-century drawings by naturalists and scientists.

I visit the Friends of the Library bookstore once a week. People donate the kind of things I treasure. In fact, a lot of my treasure came from that bookstore. I think I’ll arrange to give my stuff to them when I die. I’ve already given them thousands of books, records, and CDs over the decades. It makes me sad when I see things I once loved left on the shelves for weeks. Hopefully, they will all find a new home with someone to love them. I guess I’m no different than Adele Gereth.

JWH

The Forsytes on TV

by James Wallace Harris, 6/13/26

Would anyone still be reading John Galsworthy if British television didn’t keep producing new versions of The Forsyte Saga? Galsworthy did win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932, the year before he died, but that recognition seldom guarantees an enduring audience.

I must admit I wouldn’t be reading Galsworthy books today if I hadn’t been a fan of all three miniseries based on The Forsyte Saga. Technically, The Forsyte Saga is the title Galsworthy gave to the first trilogy of novels based on the Forsyte family. All nine novels are called The Forsyte Chronicles.

I know it sounds obsessive that I’m reading the books after watching 42 episodes of the three miniseries. However, the novels color in the main characters with greater detail. They also flesh out all the minor characters we see standing around the main characters on the screen.

The literary world has forgotten Galsworthy as a Victorian materialist who didn’t make the evolutionary step to modernism. Virginia Woolf was particularly hard on Galsworthy for failing to portray the inner lives of his characters. We don’t get deep, long stream-of-consciousness narratives, but I do feel Galsworthy describes the inner world of his characters, sometimes explicitly but often implied through dialogue and action.

Soames Foryste, who readers will hate as much as Irene Forsyte hates him, does get our sympathy. Soames is so well developed over six novels that he feels like one of the historical figures Lytton Strachey wrote about in Eminent Victorians.

Personally, I don’t know why Anthony Trollope and John Galsworthy aren’t as popular with readers as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. They fill in a gap in English history for readers who study history through novels. Galsworthy is well-suited for those who love Downton Abbey, which explains why British television has produced it three times.

Amazon has the Forsyte Collection for 99 cents, which claims to contain everything in 3,355 pages. There are several audiobook editions, but I’m listening to the Naxos editions. Naxos packages the entire story of nine novels using their trilogy names: The Forsyte Saga, A Modern Comedy, and End of the Chapter.

Only the first six novels actually focus on the Forsytes; the last three deal with a distant cousin.

The Forsytes Saga (1967) miniseries has 26 parts, and covers the first six novels and interludes (short stories):

  • The Man of Property
  • In Chancery
  • To Let
  • The White Monkey
  • The Silver Spoon
  • Swan Song

The Forsyte Saga (2002) miniseries has 10 parts, and only covers the first three novels and interludes (short stories):

  • The Man of Property
  • In Chancery
  • To Let

The latest television version, The Forsytes (2025), had only six episodes in its first season and covered only part of The Man of Property. It had been renewed for seasons 2 and 3. For some reason, it changes the story from the books and the two other television series. I don’t recommend starting with this series, even though it has the most elaborate production.

I recommend watching the 1967 series, which is in black-and-white. The only place I could find it was on YouTube. Among the stars were two of my favorites, Kenneth More and Susan Hampshire.

As far as I can remember, only Soames, Irene, and Winifred appear in all six of the first novels that focus on the Forsyte family from the 1880s until 1926. It involves at least ten love stories and eight marriages. It begins in Victorian times, spans the Edwardian, through World War I, and into the Jazz Age.

The 26 episodes of The Forsyte Saga reminded me a great deal of the 26 episodes of The Pallisers, which is based on six novels by Anthony Trollope. It made me wonder if Galsworthy was a fan of Trollope. But it also reminded me of the 12-volume novel series, Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell, and the four-part TV series of the same name. These English writers like to span generations, combining character drama and British history.

Although there are plenty of reasons to hate Soames Forsyte, I found him a fascinating character. I was very sympathetic to Irene Forsyte, but I also wanted to condemn her. I both liked and disliked Jon and Fleur. In the 1967 version, Fleur was played by Susan Hampshire. It’s hard to judge the faults of a character played by such a beautiful actress.

I’ve already seen the 2002 version twice, and I’m looking forward to watching it again. According to WatchNow, it’s available on Netflix and PBS. Damian Lewis portrays Soames wonderfully. The character is so unlikable, yet over time, you develop great sympathy for the poor man.

Unfortunately, I haven’t taken to the new 2025 version, although I will give it another viewing. The actors all look too young and beautiful. The costumes, sets, and production are luscious. Visually, it reminds me of HBO’s The Gilded Age. The latest big historical dramas all seem to be revising the past, so everyone is young and beautiful. I really appreciated all the genuinely old-looking characters in the 1967 version.

The miniseries focuses on romantic relationships. The novels also explore many other kinds of relationships. Soames and his father. Soames and his uncles and aunts. Soames with his brothers and sisters. Soames is the patron of Philip the artist. But they are also romantic rivals for Irene. In the second trilogy, A Modern Comedy, the novels focus on Soames’ relationship with his daughter Fleur. In the second trilogy, we see Soames in several business and political relationships. And we see Soames’ relationship to art – he’s a collector of paintings.

And this is just the connections of Soames. There is an intense relationship between Old Jolyon, Young Jolyon, and his son Jolly. We encounter even more relationships with their wives and lovers. Young Jolyon is Soames’s first cousin, and the two families have several overlapping relationships.

The story focuses on marriage from Victorian times through the Jazz Age. To the first and second generations of Forystes, marriage was about improving the Forsyte holdings. Soames twice marries poor, beautiful women who come to despise him. Intense love fails other couples. In the first six novels, I can only recall one marriage where love succeeds.

I’ve read enough about Galsworthy to know that the complicated Forsytes were somewhat inspired by his own family. And Galsworthy stole his wife, Ada, from his cousin, and they lived unmarried for several years, hiding the scandal from his father. After his father died, his cousin divorced Ada, and Galsworthy married her. This is paralleled with Jolyon and Soames.

In other words, there is great depth in these novels that makes The Forsytes worth reproducing for television. And it should encourage fans to read the novels.

JWH

STEVE JOBS IN EXILE by Geoffrey Cain

by James Wallace Harris, 6/1/26

When I first saw Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary by Geoffrey Cain, advertised on Facebook, I thought, “Geez, is there anything left unsaid about Steve Jobs?” After all the biographies and biopics, is there anything new to be revealed about the man? I decided to take a chance because the book focuses on the twelve years of the NeXT Computer. Besides, I had not read The Second Coming of Steve Jobs by Alan Deutschman in 2000, which covered the same period.

If I were to pitch this book to the average reader, I’d say: “Steve Jobs in Exile is about a world-class asshole who finds humility.” And for folks who dream of becoming entrepreneurs, I’d say, “Steve Jobs in Exile is a detailed checklist of what not to do.” This book really is about the man, and not the technology.

Interestingly, Walter Isaacson has written extensive biographies of both Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Do people read them because they are fascinated with invention or with billionaires? Both men are known for their egotism, arrogance, and cruelty toward the workers they managed. Steve Jobs in Exile is about a young man who achieved two historic successes in his twenties but then fell from grace, only to achieve a third success. Will we ever read about Elon Musk falling from grace and finding humility?

By the way, why does Jobs get so much credit when he wasn’t a programmer or electrical engineer? I give Steve Wozniak credit for the Apple computer. And credit for the Macintosh to the pirate team Jobs assembled. Was NeXT’s eventual redemption due to Jobs? Or despite him? I hoped Steve Jobs in Exile would have been more about the real inventors of NeXT computers and NeXTSTEP.

I had hoped Steve Jobs in Exile would be another Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder – it wasn’t, but I still found it an engrossing read. The first part of the book made me despise Steve Jobs, but eventually Cain convinced me to admire the man a great deal. This nonfiction book was like a novel with a protagonist who grows and ultimately overcomes their faults. The book reignited my addiction to reading about the history of personal computers. I’ll probably go read David Pogue’s new book, Apple: The First 50 Years, soon, even though I’ve read plenty of histories on Apple Computers, too.

I was always a PC guy, and not a Mac guy, until last year. Although I used Macs at work. From 1978 until 2013, my job involved ordering computers, setting them up, and training their users. I worked at a college of education with about 150 faculty and staff, and just under 3,000 students. I’ve probably used every model computer Apple made during those years. I also set up PCs, starting with the first IBM PC with diskette drives. I guess I’ve unboxed and set up over a thousand computers.

Also, back in 1978, I became addicted to computer magazines. I’d go all over town, checking computer stores, newsstands, and bookstores two or three times a week for the latest issues of magazines devoted to computers. That’s when I first learned about Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. I wanted an Apple II, but could only afford an Atari 400.

Back in the 1990s, sales reps from NeXT came to our PC user group and demoed the NeXT Cube. Damn, I wanted one of them, but at $10,000, it could only be a fantasy. I guess that’s why I read Steve Jobs in Exile. I remembered that desire for a NeXT computer.

Several years ago, I got the hankering to buy a classic computer like an Apple II or Commodore 64, or even a NeXT Cube. NeXT machines do show up on eBay, such as this one for $5,817.54.

However, after playing with operating system emulators online, I realized that the futuristic NeXT Computer from the 1990s is now horribly primative. Just watch how painful it is to watch NeXTSTEP 1.0 boot up. From time to time, I still hanker for a classic computer. But then I visualize using one, recalling its limitations and why I was always upgrading to a newer computer.

I take consolation in that I’m using Tahoe 26.5 on my Mac Mini M4 right now, which is a descendant of NeXTSTEP. That didn’t stop me from going to Archive.org and reading old issues of NeXTWORLD magazine.

Reading about Steve Jobs again reminded me of how a few men back in the 20th century changed all of our lives. If we filmed It’s A Wonderful Life today, and imagined removing Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, just how different would our society be? Sure, similar devices and operating systems would develop, but would society unfold again like it did? Was the GUI and smartphone inevitable? Aren’t most tech billionaires rich because they got to an idea first, and if they hadn’t, many others would have?

Why are there so many books written about the men who sold us computers, and not about the computers and technology? Did Steve Jobs change society, or did the iPhone?

I’d love to read a detailed history of the graphical user interface (GUI). Was NeXTSTEP really superior to Sun OS, Windows NT, or OS/2? Who really invented the various elements of these operating systems?

JWH

Separate Tables (1958) and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (1971)

By James Wallace Harris, 5/26/26

Last Thursday, Bookbub offered me a $1.99 deal on Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor. That deal is no longer available, and the Kindle edition is now $5.99. However, my edition is an NRRB edition, and the current one is from Virago. They each have a different introduction. That makes me wonder about Bookbub deals. Well, that’s neither here nor there. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a wonderful novel.

I bought the book and started reading it right away because it was about an elderly Englishwoman moving into a hotel that catered to retirees. For some reason, I’ve always liked movies, TV shows, and books where people live in a rooming house or hotel.

But here’s the coincidence I wanted to mention. Thursday night, YouTube offered me Separate Tables, a film about people living at an English residential hotel. You have to wonder just how savvy these AI algorithms are at knowing what we like.

I’ve since discovered there’s a film version of Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, also available to watch for free on YouTube. It would have been even eerier if the algorithm had offered me this film last Thursday. And one reason I’m reviewing these two stories together is that the people in the Claremont also ate at separate tables. Both stories are about loneliness. Mrs. Palefrey focuses on older people, and Separate Tables covers everyone.

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, the novel, is a gentle tale about unhappiness that makes you feel good. Laura Palfrey is a widow with one estranged daughter and one indifferent grandson.

Elizabeth Taylor describes her: “She was a tall woman with big bones and a noble face, dark eyebrows and a neatly folded jowl. She would have made a distinguished-looking man and, sometimes, wearing evening dress, looked as Lord Louis Mountbatten might in drag.”

The plot of this novel is rather simple. Mrs. Palfrey is embarrassed that her grandson doesn’t come to visit. She befriends a starving would-be writer, Ludo Myers, who actually likes her. So she tells the other hotel guests that Ludo is her grandson. Keeping up this lie leads to light, pleasant humor. Along the way, we get to know the other elderly guests at the Claremont.

Only one old man, Mr. Osmond, lives among the old women. I sometimes go places where I’m the only old guy among a roomful of old women. So I identified with Mr. Osmond.

Separate Tables is a far more dramatic, edgier tale, on the verge of melodrama. The film is based on two one-act plays, and the story is told through an ensemble cast. David Niven won a Best Actor Oscar, even though his time on screen was short. In all, the film was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and won two. The other was for Wendy Hiller for Best Supporting Actress.

Sibyl Railton-Bell (Deborah Kerr) is a homely spinster dominated by her mother, Mrs. Maud Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper). Sibyl is emotionally fragile and is afraid of sex, yet she is attracted to Major David Angus Pollock (David Niven). Pollock is a lonely old man who pretends to be a war hero and has several dark secrets. John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) is an American hiding out from life at the hotel. He has a tortured soul, drinks, but attracts the hotel manager, Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller). They talk of getting married. Then Anne Shankland (Rita Hayworth) shows up. She’s an actress who has gotten too old and can no longer dominate men or get parts.

All the actors play against their famous type.

Separate Tables is gorgeous to look at, filmed in widescreen black-and-white. The story flows from one character to the next, bringing all the guests together into a scene I particularly liked. It’s near the end when they are all seated at separate tables, but talking to each other between tables.

Both stories, Between Tables and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, are about loneliness. I’ve known several people who have said they were loneliest at parties, when they were around people. The characters in these two stories are frequently together. The virtue of Elizabeth Taylor’s novel is that the reader hears what’s going on in people’s heads. In contrast to the film, viewers must read the actors’ minds through facial expressions and body language.

I have this odd feeling I’ve seen Separate Tables before, but I have no real memory of it, just a bit of déjà vu. Getting old is a trip. I know I’m trying not to talk about it because it depresses my friends, but I find the experience fascinating, even all the forgetting.

I’ve always assumed that if my wife dies first, I’ll move into some kind of retirement community or assisted living. Most people I know dread the thought of such a lifestyle. I like the idea of having my own room for solitude, but being able to go downstairs and find a community. And I know as I get older and weaker, I’ll be glad to give up working in the yard, taking care of the house, and driving. I think such laziness is why I’m drawn to stories about people living on hotels and rooming houses.

I’m guessing that many of my friends will find these two stories disturbing. My peers hate anything that makes them think about aging. I guess I’m some kind of existential Boy Scout, because I consider such stories to be preparing me for the future.

By the way, the introduction to Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont in the current edition is by Paul Bailey, who claims to have been Taylor’s inspiration for Ludo. You can read the sample at Amazon to read the introduction, but here’s the part I liked.

I have to begin this appreciation of Elizabeth Taylor’s penultimate novel on a personal note. I was working as an assistant in Harrods when my first book, At the Jerusalem, was published in 1967 – a fact which, for some reason, struck the diarist of The Times as being of interest to the paper’s readers. A year after publication, I met Elizabeth Taylor at a party. She told me how intrigued she had been that a man in his late twenties should have chosen a home for old women as the setting for a novel, and that she had gone to Harrods’ magazine department to see what such a curious creature looked like. She went on to say that she had watched me at work for about an hour, from the vantage of a chair in the adjoining lounge. She smiled as she made this revelation. She had not anticipated seeing someone with a youthful appearance: she had expected me to be just a trifle wizened.

When I read Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont in 1971, I remembered Elizabeth Taylor’s confession. Ludovic Myers, the young man who comes to Mrs Palfrey’s aid when she falls in the street and who subsequently befriends her, is a novelist manqué. Throughout the course of Mrs Palfrey, he is writing a study of old age which – altering a phrase uttered over a pre-dinner sherry by his new, elderly friend – he gives the title They Weren’t Allowed to Die There. He works at Harrods, in the sense that he takes his manuscript into the (now vanished) banking hall, where he scribbles away happily, surrounded by Honourables on their uppers and tired county ladies resting their feet before the train journey back to the shires. Ludo, like me, is an ex-actor, who has done his stint in a tatty repertory company and has no desire to repeat the experience. In other words, I am flattered to think that I gave Elizabeth Taylor a little bit of inspiration for what is undoubtedly one of her finest books.

Taylor, Elizabeth (2011). Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics Book 83) . Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.

JWH