The novel, as a genre, favors the young over the old. With “Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont,” the writer Elizabeth Taylor gave aging its due.
.” Although Taylor herself rejected such modes in favor of studied restraint, it’s clear that she understood their appeal.
Mrs. Palfrey enters the Claremont armed with a rubber-tipped walking stick and stoic resolve. She learns to navigate the hotel’s clientele: the absurd Mr. Osmond, scribbling reactionary letters to newspapers; the jolly drunk Mrs. Burton, pressing the bell for whiskey; the domineering Mrs. Arbuthnot, who spitefully condoles Mrs. Palfrey when she has no visitors. She eats her celery soup alone, at a separate table, determined to find her place in this strange new world.
To make up a grandson may seem rather daring for a lady like Mrs. Palfrey. But in old age, she finds, the once-secure foundations of identity tend to dissolve. Age demotes her to an inferior class; her Claremont room reminds her of a maid’s bedroom. Gender distinctions, too, seem to collapse. The Claremont’s women look increasingly like old men, the vitriolic Mr. Osmond like an old woman.
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