As I'm sure many of you know, it's the centenary of Elizabeth Taylor's birth this year, and there's been a monthly readalong all year, all started by Laura's Musings. I agreed to host the discussion of this month's novel, The Wedding Group, which was in fact one of the few of ET's novels I had not only not read but not even heard of (lots of nots there but you get the idea). The novels have been read in chronological order of publication, so as we are getting late in the year, this is a late-ish novel, published in 1968 -- that's eleven years after Angel and three years before Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, in case you're interested in such things.
I don't think the new Virago cover is at all suitable for this rather strange and serious work. The young woman in the picture is glamorous and sophisticated-looking, completely unlike Cressida, or Cressy as she is usually called, and I certainly didn't imagine David to be so suave and film-star-ish. If you haven't read this yet you'll be wondering what I'm on about, so here goes.
Cressida, together with her cousins Imogen and Petronella, are the grand-daughters of Harry Bretton, "painter and pronouncer", as Taylor neatly describes him. The whole family -- grandparents, parents and daughters -- live at Quayne, deep in the English countryside, and virtually a village in itself. There's a chapel, essential since the whole family has converted to Roman Catholicism and even has its own Chaplain, Father Daughrty, "who was ending his boozy days at Quayne", a farmhouse for Harry and his wife and separate cottages for their three married daughters and their own offspring, a studio for Harry to paint in, and the great barn, where communal meals are taken. Life at Quayne is simple. Food is home grown, clothes are hand made, and life is serious and wholesome, as Harry's idea of a fun evening is "talk and music at home, where there was mead to drink, or cider, or his wife Rachel's elderflower wine". Harry despises the "jerry-built" outside world, and expects his family to do so too.
But Cressy cannot fit into that mold. She has lost her faith and come to despise the worthy simplicity of life at Quayne, longing instead for Wimpy Bars and young men with sports cars, and "fashionable clothes that would fall apart before she tired of them". So, much to the surprise and horror of the rest of the family, Cressy rebels. She gets a job in an antique shop in the village and soon manages to actually move out of Quayne and get a room in the house of the shop's owners. She lives on baked beans on toast and dreads the weekends when she must trudge up the hill to visit her family. But then there is David. He is a journalist, and in fact met Cressy when he did an article on Quayne and its inhabitants for a Sunday Supplement.
David lives alone with his mother Midge, a stylish and attractive woman who, despite her apparent independence, is in fact terrified that David will one day move out and leave her finally and horribly alone. When David starts to take an interest in Cressy, she is rather taken with the girl, thinking she is like a child who they can both care for. So when David announces that he and Cressy are going to get married, Midge is very disconcerted. But she soon manages to turn things around...
I said earlier that this was a serious novel, and I think that's right, though I'm rather hoping some people will disagree with me and say they found it hilarious. It does, in any case, deal with some quite interesting and thought-provoking issues. The monstrous Harry, smug and self-satisfied and completely sure that his way of life is vastly superior to the way the rest of the world lives, is not a bad man in any accepted sense of the word, but he is stuck in an unrealistic past and dominates in a most unattractive way over his womenfolk and even over their husbands, who really are not capable of standing up to him. Midge, abandoned many years ago by David's father because he just didn't like her very much, is far from admirable -- she manipulates both Cressy and David for her own purposes in quite a ruthless way -- but it's impossible, or was so for me, not to feel a certain amount of sympathy for her dread of a lonely old age. As for Cressy -- well, it would be great if she blossomed and flourished in her chosen modern world, but the opposite is really the case -- she eats too much, gets fat, watches endless rubbish television, and can't cope with housework or even with caring for her baby. Is this because her peculiar upbringing has unfitted her to live any other way? or is she just a useless, lazy girl?
So -- what we really need to know is what you thought of the novel. If you have a blog, please write a review and send a link to me here - if you haven't just add something to the comments. There'll be a round-up of all the reviews at the end of the month. So there's still plenty of time to get reading! The first review I've seen appeared this morning and can be read here, so thanks, Darlene.
