Tag Archives: Peter Taylor

LITERATURE: A Summons to Memphis – Finale

I can see where some of today’s readers may feel that this book is boring, lacking real page-turning excitement, and perhaps even call it a navel-gazer. It is, despite the potential for a collision course set by the narrator in … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: A Summons to Memphis – Theme and Focus

Taylor does a great job of building up by providing the basis. From the title through the description of setting (or environment that is truly necessary to the story), the reader is given all the details of time, place, characters, … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: A Summons to Memphis – Unreliable Narrator?

Aside from the phone call (the “Summons”) in the beginning of the book, there is little–maybe no–dialogue in this narrative. What Taylor is doing–and I’m halfway through–is describing the characters as seen by the narrator in the first person point … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: A Summons to Memphis – Character Driven

Two chapters into this now and I would say that Taylor paints with a thin brush. By this I mean that his characters, which I’m taking to be the most important focus of the novel, are being revealed so slowly, … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: A Summons to Memphis

I’ve loved Peter Taylor’s short stories and was looking forward to spending more time with this eloquent writer. A Summons to Memphis has been sitting on my bookshelf for a while and in my determination to break my two year-long … Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old Forest – Finale

It’s been quite an experience reading this anthology.  I’ve learned so much in watching Peter Taylor skillfully focus and bring out the innermost personality of his characters while weaving a setting that grounds the players together in an American South … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old ForestThe Scoutmaster

This story perhaps more than any other illustrates Taylor’s method of characterization through character observation.  There is, as a matter of fact, very much "overhearing" thus giving us what may (if we assume narrator reliability, and that’s been a major … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old Forest – More on Taylor

The majority of Taylor’s stories in this anthology are set in the old South of Tennessee and therefore there is the constant of social status as well as the racial relations.  Taylor’s amazing insight coupled with his skill at exposing … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old Forest – Taylor Magic

I’ve been trying to put my finger on how Peter Taylor manages the deep character revelation he does while in such a subtle way, particularly by using the narrator voice to establish something often quite different than what the narrator … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old ForestA Long Fourth

I believe this story is the first in the anthology to be written in third person pov, but Taylor’s method of indepth character revelation is just as powerful. The protagonist is a middle-aged woman, Harriet, with a grown son and … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old ForestA Long Fourth

Just read this in this Taylor short story: Now the sight of Son and Ann in this pretty frame only reminded her of their unnatural and strange relationship.  They were walking far apart and Ann was speaking with deliberation and … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old ForestThe Little Cousins

This was good.  A young boy as first person narrator describes his rather spoiled life with his older sister, widowed father, and housekeeper as he and his sister manipulate the adults.  He is aware of his own flaws and in … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old ForestAllegiance

This story in the anthology was not particularly a favorite, although I suspect that the subtlety of characterization is outstanding.  Again, first person pov, the narrator being a young serviceman visiting an old aunt who has been kept out of … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old Forest – A Bit of a Drag

The next story in this collection is A Friend and Protector and while Taylor’s skill still shines in the area of character development and subtlety, this particular story didn’t wow me quite to the state that a couple of the … Continue reading Continue reading

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LITERATURE: The Old Forest – Bad Dreams

The story is simple: A well-to-do man brings an old black man home to live in a room in the barn loft, where his butler and maid, a young black married couple already occupy two rooms and the only bathroom … Continue reading Continue reading

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