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The Eliot Quartet #1
The Lost Life
England, September 1934. Two young lovers, Catherine and Daniel, have trespassed into the rose garden of Burnt Norton, an abandoned house in the English countryside.
Hearing the sound of footsteps, they hide, and then witness the poet T.S. ('Tom') Eliot and his close friend Emily enter the garden and bury a mysterious tin in the earth. Tom and Emily knew each other in America in their youth; now in their forties, they have come together again. In the enclosed world of an English village one autumn, their story becomes entwined with that of Catherine and Daniel, who are certain in their newfound love and full of possibility.
Hearing the sound of footsteps, they hide, and then witness the poet T.S. ('Tom') Eliot and his close friend Emily enter the garden and bury a mysterious tin in the earth. Tom and Emily knew each other in America in their youth; now in their forties, they have come together again. In the enclosed world of an English village one autumn, their story becomes entwined with that of Catherine and Daniel, who are certain in their newfound love and full of possibility.
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First published April 1, 2009
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About the author
Steven Carroll
16 books31 followersSteven Carroll is an Australian novelist. He was born in 1949 in Melbourne, Victoria and studied at La Trobe University. He has taught English at secondary school level, and drama at RMIT. He has been Drama Critic for The Sunday Age newspaper in Melbourne.
Steven Carroll is now a full-time writer living in Melbourne with his partner, the writer Fiona Capp, and their son. As of 2019, he also writes the non-fiction book review column for the Sydney Morning Herald.
Steven Carroll is now a full-time writer living in Melbourne with his partner, the writer Fiona Capp, and their son. As of 2019, he also writes the non-fiction book review column for the Sydney Morning Herald.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
November 17, 2011
I really enjoyed the pace and poetry of this book. I loved the idea that the Lilac women and TS Eliot had a life.It is really strange because in 2009 this is a poem I wrote:
A RUSTY TIN OF CONSEQUENCE
If an iconic poet had seen us
could they have shaped a meaning
to that seaside afternoon ?
Could they have found the words ?
or ways to yet convey that lingering sense
that truth between lovers is never known by any other
no matter what they think they see ?
All they saw were shards and fragments
a blue tissue papered letter torn to pieces
a diamond ring still in its velvet box
a pressed violet from the Spring
shut tight within that rusty tin -
Lemon Acid Drops
still pictured on the lid-
and dropped from the pier’s end
into that deep, deep blue water.
A RUSTY TIN OF CONSEQUENCE
If an iconic poet had seen us
could they have shaped a meaning
to that seaside afternoon ?
Could they have found the words ?
or ways to yet convey that lingering sense
that truth between lovers is never known by any other
no matter what they think they see ?
All they saw were shards and fragments
a blue tissue papered letter torn to pieces
a diamond ring still in its velvet box
a pressed violet from the Spring
shut tight within that rusty tin -
Lemon Acid Drops
still pictured on the lid-
and dropped from the pier’s end
into that deep, deep blue water.
September 19, 2017
A lovely meditation on love, youth and poetry.
January 7, 2022
The Lost Life is the first entry in Steven Carroll's "Eliot Quartet", which takes as its theme the life and work of the modernist T.S. Eliot. Carroll is taking on quite a challenge with this project, and not only because Eliot one of the most influential literary figures of the twentieth century. Eliot, after all, wrote poetry, plays, and criticism that are notorious for their impersonality and detachment. How Carroll is going to shift his subject onto the more personal genre of the novel was always going to be a challenge.
To overcome this challenge, Carroll chooses to approach the figure of Eliot indirectly. As such, the novel opens in 1934 with its focus on two young lovers, Catherine and Daniel. Daniel is twenty-two, has recently returned home from Cambridge, and plans to go to France to study the French Revolution. He is an avowed Marxist and known around town for his love of pranks. Catherine, by contrast, is eighteen and just finishing high school. The love they discovered this summer is new and unexpected.
Catherine and Daniel sneak into the empty mansion known as Burnt Norton, famous as the title of the first of Eliot's Four Quartets. There they hope to find a pool where they can swim on a hot summer's day, only to find that it has been drained. When they hear the sound of approaching voices, Catherine and Daniel hide behind some bushes, where they observe Eliot and his lover, Emily Hale.
Eliot and Hale met while back in Boston, while they were studying at Harvard. Despite their mutual attraction, Eliot had left her to go to Europe, where he ended up in an unhappy marriage with Vivien Haigh-Wood. Hale, meanwhile, is a drama teacher, whose house Catherine cleans on a part-time basis. Together, Eliot and Hale perform a ceremony to signify their love, exchanging roses and rings. Eliot deposits his ring, the roses, and a sheet of paper in a cigar tin and buries it in the rose garden. Shortly after Eliot and Hale leave, Catherine watches in horror as Daniel retrieves the box and gives it to her. When the older couple returns shortly after - Eliot has forgotten is hat - he is horrified, taking the defilement of the buried box as a sign that he will never escape from Vivien.
Catherine visits Hale with the tin, but her guilt leads her to ask instead for Eliot to sign her copy of his book. Hale talks with Emily about Eliot's poetry, and recounts the missed opportunity of spending her life with him, exhorting Catherine not to make the same mistake. Eliot, she reveals, has departed, and Hale expresses her belief that they are being persecuted by the Furies. When Catherine tells Daniel about this exchange, she says that she felt as thought Hale were playing some kind of scripted role.
The novel then dwells on the background of Catherine, whose father left when she was a young child, and Daniel, whose interest in intellectual things brings him into conflict with his more practical father. Daniel's imagination was particularly fired by a meeting with Theodor Adorno, which cements his view that Eliot is a conservative indulged by privilege, "a sort of Westminster Abbey on legs".
Catherine goes to Hale's place to clean, and has another conversation with her about the nature of love. Hale gives her some expensive, sexy stockings as a gift. Catherine then meets up with Daniel, kissing him passionately and talking, before they go to hear a Beethoven string quartet at the local church. Catherine notices Eliot and Hale in the audience. After the performance, Daniel leaves to help his father in the shop, and so Catherine is left to meet Eliot and Hale by herself. Catherine is surprised by how cold Eliot's handshake is. Later, while waiting for Daniel, Catherine visits the church, and is surprised to see Eliot in there, praying.
Catherine visits Hale to have her book signed by Eliot, and noticed a letter from Vivien instructing her husband to return home. Eliot, his face looking careworn, gladly signs Catherine's book. Later that morning, Catherine receives a note from Hale, asking her to return. Hale charges Catherine with the mission of carrying her reply to Vivien, which involves going all the way to London.
Catherine travels to London for the first time in her life, where she meets Vivien. In Vivien's voice, she can hear traces of Eliot's poetry. She also notices that Vivien's walls are covered with photographs of her with her husband, the basis of her desperate claim for him to return. Vivien's demeanor reminds Catherine of Mrs Havisham, and she feels pity for the abandoned woman. Catherine brings back Vivien's reply to Hale and, when she sees it deposited in the wastepaper basket, contemplates how such texts can be erased from history altogether.
As a reward, Hale hints to Catherine that the house will be empty for a day, giving the young lovers a free space in which to make love. Catherine and Daniel take up her implicit offer gladly, particularly after so conversations about the exigency of seizing life's opportunities. Hale returns early, and she hears the loud sounds made by Catherine during sex. Catherine then emerges, naked, from the bedroom, and is shocked, but also a little pleased, to see Hale there. Catherine feels as though her taste of sexual experience has allowed Hale to live vicariously through her.
Daniel goes away to France to study, and the relationship with Catherine fizzles out. Time then jumps forward to the 1990s. Catherine is attending the wedding of her cousin's granddaughter on the grounds of Burnt Norton. Walking through the garden, everything looks the same, and she reflects on her life, particularly on Daniel, who has making an academic career for himself as one of the famous Birmingham school of cultural studies. Catherine herself has gone on to become an accomplished actress, meeting Eliot once again in 1939 when she played the role of Mary in his play The Family Reunion; years later she would play the older character of Agatha. Redeeming the transgression committed by Daniel so long ago, the elderly Catherine return the cigar tin to the place where Eliot had buried it.
Some readers may find The Lost Life slow and a bit ponderous, and it's true that not much happens in the novel. Surely, however, that is to miss the point: the profundity of the book lies not in action, but in the various reflections provided on the nature of time and, in particular, the necessity of living to the fullest the opportunities that life opens to us.
To overcome this challenge, Carroll chooses to approach the figure of Eliot indirectly. As such, the novel opens in 1934 with its focus on two young lovers, Catherine and Daniel. Daniel is twenty-two, has recently returned home from Cambridge, and plans to go to France to study the French Revolution. He is an avowed Marxist and known around town for his love of pranks. Catherine, by contrast, is eighteen and just finishing high school. The love they discovered this summer is new and unexpected.
Catherine and Daniel sneak into the empty mansion known as Burnt Norton, famous as the title of the first of Eliot's Four Quartets. There they hope to find a pool where they can swim on a hot summer's day, only to find that it has been drained. When they hear the sound of approaching voices, Catherine and Daniel hide behind some bushes, where they observe Eliot and his lover, Emily Hale.
Eliot and Hale met while back in Boston, while they were studying at Harvard. Despite their mutual attraction, Eliot had left her to go to Europe, where he ended up in an unhappy marriage with Vivien Haigh-Wood. Hale, meanwhile, is a drama teacher, whose house Catherine cleans on a part-time basis. Together, Eliot and Hale perform a ceremony to signify their love, exchanging roses and rings. Eliot deposits his ring, the roses, and a sheet of paper in a cigar tin and buries it in the rose garden. Shortly after Eliot and Hale leave, Catherine watches in horror as Daniel retrieves the box and gives it to her. When the older couple returns shortly after - Eliot has forgotten is hat - he is horrified, taking the defilement of the buried box as a sign that he will never escape from Vivien.
Catherine visits Hale with the tin, but her guilt leads her to ask instead for Eliot to sign her copy of his book. Hale talks with Emily about Eliot's poetry, and recounts the missed opportunity of spending her life with him, exhorting Catherine not to make the same mistake. Eliot, she reveals, has departed, and Hale expresses her belief that they are being persecuted by the Furies. When Catherine tells Daniel about this exchange, she says that she felt as thought Hale were playing some kind of scripted role.
The novel then dwells on the background of Catherine, whose father left when she was a young child, and Daniel, whose interest in intellectual things brings him into conflict with his more practical father. Daniel's imagination was particularly fired by a meeting with Theodor Adorno, which cements his view that Eliot is a conservative indulged by privilege, "a sort of Westminster Abbey on legs".
Catherine goes to Hale's place to clean, and has another conversation with her about the nature of love. Hale gives her some expensive, sexy stockings as a gift. Catherine then meets up with Daniel, kissing him passionately and talking, before they go to hear a Beethoven string quartet at the local church. Catherine notices Eliot and Hale in the audience. After the performance, Daniel leaves to help his father in the shop, and so Catherine is left to meet Eliot and Hale by herself. Catherine is surprised by how cold Eliot's handshake is. Later, while waiting for Daniel, Catherine visits the church, and is surprised to see Eliot in there, praying.
Catherine visits Hale to have her book signed by Eliot, and noticed a letter from Vivien instructing her husband to return home. Eliot, his face looking careworn, gladly signs Catherine's book. Later that morning, Catherine receives a note from Hale, asking her to return. Hale charges Catherine with the mission of carrying her reply to Vivien, which involves going all the way to London.
Catherine travels to London for the first time in her life, where she meets Vivien. In Vivien's voice, she can hear traces of Eliot's poetry. She also notices that Vivien's walls are covered with photographs of her with her husband, the basis of her desperate claim for him to return. Vivien's demeanor reminds Catherine of Mrs Havisham, and she feels pity for the abandoned woman. Catherine brings back Vivien's reply to Hale and, when she sees it deposited in the wastepaper basket, contemplates how such texts can be erased from history altogether.
As a reward, Hale hints to Catherine that the house will be empty for a day, giving the young lovers a free space in which to make love. Catherine and Daniel take up her implicit offer gladly, particularly after so conversations about the exigency of seizing life's opportunities. Hale returns early, and she hears the loud sounds made by Catherine during sex. Catherine then emerges, naked, from the bedroom, and is shocked, but also a little pleased, to see Hale there. Catherine feels as though her taste of sexual experience has allowed Hale to live vicariously through her.
Daniel goes away to France to study, and the relationship with Catherine fizzles out. Time then jumps forward to the 1990s. Catherine is attending the wedding of her cousin's granddaughter on the grounds of Burnt Norton. Walking through the garden, everything looks the same, and she reflects on her life, particularly on Daniel, who has making an academic career for himself as one of the famous Birmingham school of cultural studies. Catherine herself has gone on to become an accomplished actress, meeting Eliot once again in 1939 when she played the role of Mary in his play The Family Reunion; years later she would play the older character of Agatha. Redeeming the transgression committed by Daniel so long ago, the elderly Catherine return the cigar tin to the place where Eliot had buried it.
Some readers may find The Lost Life slow and a bit ponderous, and it's true that not much happens in the novel. Surely, however, that is to miss the point: the profundity of the book lies not in action, but in the various reflections provided on the nature of time and, in particular, the necessity of living to the fullest the opportunities that life opens to us.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 23, 2017
Started off thinking it was pretentious, then enjoyed all the ideas about life and love it provoked which were well formed and felt inspired. Though, finished feeling it had been rushed and that Steven Carroll was simply trying to pump the story out. All in all, it was nice and rather enjoyable but gave a sense of lacking originality and time.
January 1, 2014
While I was somewhat curious about the facts behind the story, I didn't enjoy reading this novel. I found the style frustrating and the characters tedious. Long, complex sentences left me out of breath and lost by the end. The repetition of the scenes in the rose garden in the beginning of the novel seemed to drag out a fairly uneventful moment; the over-exaggeration of the moment played out through the rest of the novel and I wanted both of the women to stop being so overwrought.
An example of the kind of sentence that turned me off the story:
"The name that Tom - who is adjusting his cap and eyeing the fields for cattle because cattle unnerve him almost as much as humanity does - the name with which Tom presents himself and to the world, the name by which he is known and read (indeed by Catherine and Daniel, who are, at this moment, discovering the disappointment of the drained pools of the estate), the name that he sends into the world with his books of verse and criticism, is T.S. Eliot."
An example of the kind of sentence that turned me off the story:
"The name that Tom - who is adjusting his cap and eyeing the fields for cattle because cattle unnerve him almost as much as humanity does - the name with which Tom presents himself and to the world, the name by which he is known and read (indeed by Catherine and Daniel, who are, at this moment, discovering the disappointment of the drained pools of the estate), the name that he sends into the world with his books of verse and criticism, is T.S. Eliot."
June 16, 2022
A slow moving, overwritten account of two love affairs, I found this a very frustrating read. The middle-aged Tom (T.S. Elliot) and Emily Hale who were in love in their youth but separated meet again and renew their friendship. These are known facts. The author weaves an imagined story around these facts, introducing young lovers, Catherine and Daniel, who are observers of Tom and Emily. Based on one of Elliot's poems, the story is sad, but I found the writing style tedious with repetitive, long-winded sentences.
March 25, 2016
Beautiful writing isn't enough to balance out the nothingness of the plot and the frustrating characters.
May 3, 2020
2.75 stars - I feel this book was overwritten. It was extremely well written and there were lovely insights about relationships and other aspects of the human condition but it felt that Carroll was focused on perfecting perfecting his writing technique to the detriment of storytelling. I found myself becoming quite irritated as I was reading it and could not relate to the experiences of any of the protagonists and started to find the writing tedious. I think one the greatest challenges facing all artists of any genre is to be able to successfully demonstrate technique and feeling, but in this case Carroll did not succeed in doing this.
August 13, 2023
A reflective and atmospheric read with some beautiful writing. I loved the contrast between the two love affairs, one so vibrant and ardent, the other dryer and to my mind "musty", backwood looking yet full of longing. Steven Carroll always amazes me with the quiet power I find in his writing.
December 29, 2010
‘Time present and time past..
.. are both perhaps present in time future,’
Little is known about the relationship between T S Eliot and Emily Hale. His letters to her (some 1131 documents) were donated by Ms Hale to Princeton University and are sealed until 1 January 2020 by agreement. The documents may be unavailable to biographers but their existence provides a tempting basis for fiction. Stephen Carroll’s novel, using ‘Burnt Norton’ (the first poem from ‘Four Quartets’) as a literal account, opens in the grounds of Burnt Norton (the house in Gloucestershire from which the poem takes its name) in September 1934.
Catherine and Daniel, a young couple from a nearby town have slipped into the gardens of Burnt Norton for a swim, knowing that the house is empty. They are interrupted by an older couple, and alerted in time to hide, witness a private ceremony that concludes with the burial of a metal tin. Catherine recognises Emily Hale: she cleans the cottage that Emily Hale rents. Catherine also recognises T S Eliot from photographs.
When Emily Hale and T S Eliot leave, Daniel digs up the tin. They return shortly afterwards to find the site disturbed. Eliot is distressed: Vivienne, his estranged wife, has recently begun stalking him and he sees this as her work. Eliot and Hale depart, and Catherine is left with a small tobacco tin and a large dilemma. Catherine’s actions will shape the course of the novel.
The lives of the characters will move in different directions after this opening, with Catherine’s unfolding life becoming central to the story. But at the point where the lives of the two couples intersect, there’s a sense that different choices were available – at least for Catherine and Emily Hale.
It is Catherine whom Emily Hale entrusts with the delivery of a communiqué to Vivienne Eliot.
‘She was just as I imagined, only more so.’
It is Catherine who keeps the tin secret and safe, it is Catherine whose knowledge is greater than Emily Hale’s. Greater, but not complete: we each have lost lives: all choices result in opportunities not taken, particular lives not lived. Likewise, understanding grows as time passes.
The novel concludes, some six decades after it began, with Catherine in the grounds of Burnt Norton, conducting her own private ceremony.
I enjoyed this novel. T S Eliot is one of my favourite poets, and I liked the way in which Steven Carroll built this novel around ‘Burnt Norton’. But it isn’t just the literal story I enjoyed: it’s the reminder that while lives are shaped through conscious choice, choices are frequently binary.
‘Only through time time is conquered.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
.. are both perhaps present in time future,’
Little is known about the relationship between T S Eliot and Emily Hale. His letters to her (some 1131 documents) were donated by Ms Hale to Princeton University and are sealed until 1 January 2020 by agreement. The documents may be unavailable to biographers but their existence provides a tempting basis for fiction. Stephen Carroll’s novel, using ‘Burnt Norton’ (the first poem from ‘Four Quartets’) as a literal account, opens in the grounds of Burnt Norton (the house in Gloucestershire from which the poem takes its name) in September 1934.
Catherine and Daniel, a young couple from a nearby town have slipped into the gardens of Burnt Norton for a swim, knowing that the house is empty. They are interrupted by an older couple, and alerted in time to hide, witness a private ceremony that concludes with the burial of a metal tin. Catherine recognises Emily Hale: she cleans the cottage that Emily Hale rents. Catherine also recognises T S Eliot from photographs.
When Emily Hale and T S Eliot leave, Daniel digs up the tin. They return shortly afterwards to find the site disturbed. Eliot is distressed: Vivienne, his estranged wife, has recently begun stalking him and he sees this as her work. Eliot and Hale depart, and Catherine is left with a small tobacco tin and a large dilemma. Catherine’s actions will shape the course of the novel.
The lives of the characters will move in different directions after this opening, with Catherine’s unfolding life becoming central to the story. But at the point where the lives of the two couples intersect, there’s a sense that different choices were available – at least for Catherine and Emily Hale.
It is Catherine whom Emily Hale entrusts with the delivery of a communiqué to Vivienne Eliot.
‘She was just as I imagined, only more so.’
It is Catherine who keeps the tin secret and safe, it is Catherine whose knowledge is greater than Emily Hale’s. Greater, but not complete: we each have lost lives: all choices result in opportunities not taken, particular lives not lived. Likewise, understanding grows as time passes.
The novel concludes, some six decades after it began, with Catherine in the grounds of Burnt Norton, conducting her own private ceremony.
I enjoyed this novel. T S Eliot is one of my favourite poets, and I liked the way in which Steven Carroll built this novel around ‘Burnt Norton’. But it isn’t just the literal story I enjoyed: it’s the reminder that while lives are shaped through conscious choice, choices are frequently binary.
‘Only through time time is conquered.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
February 2, 2022
I found this book at a crossroads in my life, so my rating will be entirely biased and not objective at all! I found it a great little read and only came across it because I was doing a run at a local track and it was sitting in a little public library box.
I found it a beautifully introspective look at relationships; it appealed to me contrasting the life of love you are trying to regain versus the life of love you experience, flushed with youth and confidence that we are wont to have and explore at the young adult stages of life.
I also appreciated the rather cliched outlook of Emily Hales urging Catherine to not let experiences of love pass her by. I'm projecting the stages of my own life onto the book, but it spoke to me and gives me hope that I too can still grasp life the way I want to and make it into something that I will be able to look back and smile upon knowing I was able to give something a shot, even if it wasn't meant to last. I have not experienced regret often, or maybe I have but I have not dwelt on it long enough for bitterness to have set in. I feel like Emily's yearning and longing resulted in the 'different types of love' that she tries to justify herself by, when really sometimes you just want to throw caution to the wind, abandon yourself to the moment, and just feel alive. At least it's something you can savour later than attempt to rekindle when you are perhaps a different person, just like Tom was after he went to Europe, like Daniel was after he left for Paris.
A great little read, fairly easy to digest for me, something good to dip in and out of as I contemplate life changes and transitions.
I found it a beautifully introspective look at relationships; it appealed to me contrasting the life of love you are trying to regain versus the life of love you experience, flushed with youth and confidence that we are wont to have and explore at the young adult stages of life.
I also appreciated the rather cliched outlook of Emily Hales urging Catherine to not let experiences of love pass her by. I'm projecting the stages of my own life onto the book, but it spoke to me and gives me hope that I too can still grasp life the way I want to and make it into something that I will be able to look back and smile upon knowing I was able to give something a shot, even if it wasn't meant to last. I have not experienced regret often, or maybe I have but I have not dwelt on it long enough for bitterness to have set in. I feel like Emily's yearning and longing resulted in the 'different types of love' that she tries to justify herself by, when really sometimes you just want to throw caution to the wind, abandon yourself to the moment, and just feel alive. At least it's something you can savour later than attempt to rekindle when you are perhaps a different person, just like Tom was after he went to Europe, like Daniel was after he left for Paris.
A great little read, fairly easy to digest for me, something good to dip in and out of as I contemplate life changes and transitions.
October 26, 2009
This is a gentle and moving book that is written is a highly lyrical style. It's beauty lies in it's richness of language. While it is a short book that covers a short time period, Carroll has captured the essense of first love and yearning for a life that has been lost superbly. The two principal characters are rich in emotion and depth of thought and it was nice that they were both female. I loved the way I felt like I was glimpsing just a part of somebody's life without seeing the 'big picture'. It kept a sense of mystery and intrigue for both of the principal characters.
This was truly a great book and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading beautiful prose.
This was truly a great book and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading beautiful prose.
November 5, 2014
Really beautiful and lyrical, I found myself completely immersed for a good few days.
September 6, 2018
Way too much description and not enough dialogue. Very stilted. I had read his later book on them and didn’t like it that much either (A New England Affair).
March 15, 2018
Steven Carroll is an Australian author and I don't know why I've never heard of him before now because if this book is any indication he is a very good writer.
The Lost Life is a novel set over the space of one month - September 1934. It tells the story of Thomas Stearns Eliot and his 'special friend', Emily Hale, and also the story of two young people in the throes of first love, Catherine and Daniel.
Tom Eliot and Emily Hale knew each other in America when they were young, but their relationship ended almost before it began when Tom moved to England and married another woman. That marriage soon soured and Tom and Emily kept in touch through correspondence for the rest of their lives.
In this novel, Steven Carroll has Emily secretly back in England, hiding out in a small village in the English countryside where she and Tom surreptitiously meet and renew their physical relationship. Catherine has a temporary job cleaning house for Emily while she plans for a future far away from this sleepy backwater. She has fallen in love for the first time with a student, Daniel, who is back home for a short time before he goes to France to study.
The relationship of Catherine and Daniel which is fresh, passionate and ardent is contrasted with that of Emily and Tom which has evolved over the years of missed opportunity into something much quieter and which is always tinged with the regret of missed opportunity.
'The Lost Life' refers to the life that Tom and Emily never had, and never can have, and as Catherine becomes aware of their past history, her knowledge of the paths they took influence her relationship with Daniel and ultimately the way she lives her entire life - acting on passion and joyously grasping the opportunity to live and feel and experience.
This is a beautifully written book and it is book one of Carroll's Eliot Quartet so I have the delight of knowing that there is more to come of this world.
The Lost Life is a novel set over the space of one month - September 1934. It tells the story of Thomas Stearns Eliot and his 'special friend', Emily Hale, and also the story of two young people in the throes of first love, Catherine and Daniel.
Tom Eliot and Emily Hale knew each other in America when they were young, but their relationship ended almost before it began when Tom moved to England and married another woman. That marriage soon soured and Tom and Emily kept in touch through correspondence for the rest of their lives.
In this novel, Steven Carroll has Emily secretly back in England, hiding out in a small village in the English countryside where she and Tom surreptitiously meet and renew their physical relationship. Catherine has a temporary job cleaning house for Emily while she plans for a future far away from this sleepy backwater. She has fallen in love for the first time with a student, Daniel, who is back home for a short time before he goes to France to study.
The relationship of Catherine and Daniel which is fresh, passionate and ardent is contrasted with that of Emily and Tom which has evolved over the years of missed opportunity into something much quieter and which is always tinged with the regret of missed opportunity.
'The Lost Life' refers to the life that Tom and Emily never had, and never can have, and as Catherine becomes aware of their past history, her knowledge of the paths they took influence her relationship with Daniel and ultimately the way she lives her entire life - acting on passion and joyously grasping the opportunity to live and feel and experience.
This is a beautifully written book and it is book one of Carroll's Eliot Quartet so I have the delight of knowing that there is more to come of this world.
May 20, 2024
The Lost Life by Steven Carroll
Catherine, all of 18, and Daniel 22, are enjoying a picnic in this old, abandoned estate in England when in walk T S Eliot and his flame Emily Hale. T S Eliot is married and has been for years. Emily is not married but it is clear there is affection between the two. Catherine and David hide and then witness an exchange between Tom and Emily that speaks of love and passion. Catherine and Daniel having witnessed this love and passion then do something that then has repercussions throughout the rest of the story.
This is a tale of love, first love and all the passion that is a part of first love. It is a tale of how we deal with our first love when it cannot be fulfilled in a way imagined or it must come to an end. Carroll’s writing is poetic in style and conveys the beauty and emotion of all involved. I enjoyed the delicate descriptions of love overheard by various characters written sensitively.
Eliot met Emily Hale whilst both at university. Then over the years their relationship was one of a confessional via correspondence, sometimes Eliot writing 2 letters a week. Eliot married Vivienne Haigh-Westwood but kept corresponding.Eliot and Hale had exchanged rings, as in the story. But even after his wife died he couldn’t/didn’t marry Hale. Indeed a few years later he married his secretary. Hale left these letters to Princeton in 1956, not to be opened for 50 years by Eliot’s decree. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-...
Catherine, all of 18, and Daniel 22, are enjoying a picnic in this old, abandoned estate in England when in walk T S Eliot and his flame Emily Hale. T S Eliot is married and has been for years. Emily is not married but it is clear there is affection between the two. Catherine and David hide and then witness an exchange between Tom and Emily that speaks of love and passion. Catherine and Daniel having witnessed this love and passion then do something that then has repercussions throughout the rest of the story.
This is a tale of love, first love and all the passion that is a part of first love. It is a tale of how we deal with our first love when it cannot be fulfilled in a way imagined or it must come to an end. Carroll’s writing is poetic in style and conveys the beauty and emotion of all involved. I enjoyed the delicate descriptions of love overheard by various characters written sensitively.
Eliot met Emily Hale whilst both at university. Then over the years their relationship was one of a confessional via correspondence, sometimes Eliot writing 2 letters a week. Eliot married Vivienne Haigh-Westwood but kept corresponding.Eliot and Hale had exchanged rings, as in the story. But even after his wife died he couldn’t/didn’t marry Hale. Indeed a few years later he married his secretary. Hale left these letters to Princeton in 1956, not to be opened for 50 years by Eliot’s decree. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-...
January 31, 2023
The lost life is the first in the Eliott quartet. It is set in a small village in England in 1934. Catherine and Daniel are young and in love. They are spending a day exploring the rose garden in Burnt Norton, an abandoned house nearby. They hide at the sound of voices, fearing that they will be accused of trespassing and witness Emily Hale and her special friend Tom (TS Eliot) as they conduct a private ceremony and bury a mysterious tin box int he garden.
Catherine is employed to clean the house that Miss Hale has rented for the summer and is fascinated. The novel explores the relationship between TS Eliott and Emily Hale, perhaps his muse and his relationship with his wife. Emily and Tom met in America when young and are now in their forties. The novel explores young love through the eyes of Catherine, as Emily copes with waht she may have wished for and what is her reality. As in all of these books, Eliot remains a shadowy figure.
Even reading this quartet out of order, as I have done, the links between each book and the poetry of Eliot are amazing.
Catherine is employed to clean the house that Miss Hale has rented for the summer and is fascinated. The novel explores the relationship between TS Eliott and Emily Hale, perhaps his muse and his relationship with his wife. Emily and Tom met in America when young and are now in their forties. The novel explores young love through the eyes of Catherine, as Emily copes with waht she may have wished for and what is her reality. As in all of these books, Eliot remains a shadowy figure.
Even reading this quartet out of order, as I have done, the links between each book and the poetry of Eliot are amazing.
June 23, 2025
I inadvertently read the second book in Carroll’s quartet not realising it was part of a series. Not really a series though. I loved A World of Other People. I didn’t enjoy “the lost life”. However having TS Eliot as a character is interesting. The world is on the cusp of WW11 whereas it is definitely a background in the second novel. In “ the lost life” Eliot is a success.
The novel is mainly the story of two women, Emily who loved and lost Eliot and Catherine, at 19, on the brink of first love. Emily watches Catherine’s introduction to romantic love and in a way lives vicariously through her.
Carroll’s epilogue, or the story of Catherine’s life sixty years later, was welcome.
I’ll read novels three and four and hope for better reading.
The novel is mainly the story of two women, Emily who loved and lost Eliot and Catherine, at 19, on the brink of first love. Emily watches Catherine’s introduction to romantic love and in a way lives vicariously through her.
Carroll’s epilogue, or the story of Catherine’s life sixty years later, was welcome.
I’ll read novels three and four and hope for better reading.
August 30, 2021
Carroll has woven a delicate and intriguing story around Eliot's poem Burnt Norton, imagining a chance 'crossing of the paths' between Eliot and his friend Emily Hale and a pair of young lovers in pre-war Britain. We follow the paths of each couple over a month in Spring 1934 that has long-reaching effects for all of them. Beautifully written with much food for thought. I love the way the author has seamlessly interwoven the stories and poetry. I have to read #3 and #4 in this quartet now!
October 26, 2017
Didn't quite know what to make of this book. 3 stars but ended up giving it 4. Beautifully written, slow-paced book which although didn't always keep my full attention, was ultimately a worthwhile read.
September 8, 2024
I stumbled across this because of the TS Eliot connection. Love the premise, and it was a worthwhile read over a weekend away, but the long sentences (with so many commas, and brackets) a bit like this one - I found rather distracting.
July 16, 2017
The author focuses intently on the emotional needs of two couples. It is easy to become involved with the characters and the love and yearning for first love that they strive for.
July 14, 2018
Sentences that rang like McEwan's about the English countryside written by an Australian - glorious, engaging reading.
June 28, 2019
I listened to this as an audio book and that's 5 hours I am never going to get back. 15 minutes would have covered the story and plot.
I could have done without all the poetic waffle.
I could have done without all the poetic waffle.
December 8, 2019
It did spark my love of TS Eliot again and it was lovely to delve back into his words
September 14, 2021
A beautiful book - I listened to the Bolinda audiobook & Diedre Rubenstein's reading/narration was wonderful! Highly recommended!
October 9, 2021
Poignant, beautifully written. Love and life lost.
October 22, 2021
Deftly perceived and beautifully executed. This is a work of rare skill & perception.
December 15, 2024
Inspired by T.S. Elliott’s poem Burnt Norton, an abandoned estate in the English countryside, the book is very lyrical and introspective but the prose is beautiful and I really enjoyed the slow pace.
July 2, 2012
I’ve read two books recently that focus on women who have had or are having an affair. The Lost Life is about the autobiographically based relationship between TS Eliot and Emily Hale. Here’s a little snippet about it from another source (T S Eliot’s Secret Love http://www.lawrence.edu/about/trads/e...
“It must have been hard writing to the most famous poet in modern literature. Fifteen years earlier, back when they were young and in love, back when the poet was known as Tom, a bright, well-mannered Harvard boy, it would have been so much easier. Now it was different. Now Tom was T. S. Eliot, acclaimed author of "The Waste Land," influential critic and reviewer, the most talked-about poet in London.
The time is 1927, late April. Emily Hale, a teacher on leave from Milwaukee-Downer College, ponders the voice she will use in her first letter to Eliot in years. Gazing out the window of her hotel, she takes in the beauty of Florence and then begins to write. Her tone is careful, restrained. She tells Eliot about her trip; she wonders, at the letter's end, how he is doing.
The letter arrives on a warm spring morning in May. That afternoon, Eliot takes a walk through London with William Stead, a close friend and fellow American. Admiring the glow of sunshine on new leaves, Stead says it is the kind of day to be in love. Eliot agrees and then mentions the letter, says it was written by a woman he knew long ago as a young man in Boston. Stead is silent, wanting Eliot to continue. This letter, Eliot says, brought back vivid memories, made him feel things he hasn't felt in quite some time. He does not mention the woman's name…
…From 1908 until 1914, Hale and Eliot grew close, so close that she -- as well as members of both families -- expected they would marry. In 1914, though, Eliot decided not to return from a trip to Europe, and their union withered. A year later, following Eliot's impulsive marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a long period of silence set in. Not until 1927, in the letter from Florence, did Hale try to revive communication.”
Stephen Carroll who wrote The Lost Life has long been fascinated by Eliot. He said that the title of this novel came from one of Eliot’s poems: “Where is the life we have lost in the living?” The novel revolves around two couples – Eliot and Hale and a young man and woman, in love for the first time. The narrative is patterned with parallel scenes – the respective relationships provide an ongoing commentary on themes such as intimacy, sexuality, hopes and dreams. Sitting just outside this intimate world is the shadowy figure of Eliot’s wife who has great presence despite her literal absence from much of the narrative. As Princess Di put it, "There were three people in this marriage from the start” and Carroll successfully evokes the impact of the absent wife on the relationship, the way in which Hale is as much preoccupied by the wife as by the husband.
The writing about the younger couple continually evoked John Donne for me – the urgency and focus of the lovers, the great potential for life that you have when you are 18 or 20. The writing was also reminiscent of Ian McEwen. Reviewers have described it as “lucid and elegant” and I think that it about right.
Carroll, in an interview, said that he wanted to write about the role of the muse in art – but I don’t think the book is about this at all. It’s about the quote that inspired the title. Sadly, sadly (and almost inevitably) when Eliot was free to marry, he did not marry Hale. After some very painful interactions, the relationship ended in 1947. “Ten years later she received a second shock: Eliot, at age 68, had remarried, this time to Valerie Fletcher, his secretary and a woman almost 40 years younger. Devastated by the news, Hale, who had continued to teach at a variety of colleges and high schools since leaving Downer, retired from her post at Abbot Academy, bequeathed her Eliot letters to Princeton, and also sent many of the first editions and typescripts Eliot had sent her over the years.” Michelle Dean has written a little more about Hale and it is well worth a read: http://therumpus.net/2012/04/saturday...
I think Hale might’ve been lucky to escape Eliot who wrote the following: “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” But you can’t choose who you fall in love with.
“It must have been hard writing to the most famous poet in modern literature. Fifteen years earlier, back when they were young and in love, back when the poet was known as Tom, a bright, well-mannered Harvard boy, it would have been so much easier. Now it was different. Now Tom was T. S. Eliot, acclaimed author of "The Waste Land," influential critic and reviewer, the most talked-about poet in London.
The time is 1927, late April. Emily Hale, a teacher on leave from Milwaukee-Downer College, ponders the voice she will use in her first letter to Eliot in years. Gazing out the window of her hotel, she takes in the beauty of Florence and then begins to write. Her tone is careful, restrained. She tells Eliot about her trip; she wonders, at the letter's end, how he is doing.
The letter arrives on a warm spring morning in May. That afternoon, Eliot takes a walk through London with William Stead, a close friend and fellow American. Admiring the glow of sunshine on new leaves, Stead says it is the kind of day to be in love. Eliot agrees and then mentions the letter, says it was written by a woman he knew long ago as a young man in Boston. Stead is silent, wanting Eliot to continue. This letter, Eliot says, brought back vivid memories, made him feel things he hasn't felt in quite some time. He does not mention the woman's name…
…From 1908 until 1914, Hale and Eliot grew close, so close that she -- as well as members of both families -- expected they would marry. In 1914, though, Eliot decided not to return from a trip to Europe, and their union withered. A year later, following Eliot's impulsive marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a long period of silence set in. Not until 1927, in the letter from Florence, did Hale try to revive communication.”
Stephen Carroll who wrote The Lost Life has long been fascinated by Eliot. He said that the title of this novel came from one of Eliot’s poems: “Where is the life we have lost in the living?” The novel revolves around two couples – Eliot and Hale and a young man and woman, in love for the first time. The narrative is patterned with parallel scenes – the respective relationships provide an ongoing commentary on themes such as intimacy, sexuality, hopes and dreams. Sitting just outside this intimate world is the shadowy figure of Eliot’s wife who has great presence despite her literal absence from much of the narrative. As Princess Di put it, "There were three people in this marriage from the start” and Carroll successfully evokes the impact of the absent wife on the relationship, the way in which Hale is as much preoccupied by the wife as by the husband.
The writing about the younger couple continually evoked John Donne for me – the urgency and focus of the lovers, the great potential for life that you have when you are 18 or 20. The writing was also reminiscent of Ian McEwen. Reviewers have described it as “lucid and elegant” and I think that it about right.
Carroll, in an interview, said that he wanted to write about the role of the muse in art – but I don’t think the book is about this at all. It’s about the quote that inspired the title. Sadly, sadly (and almost inevitably) when Eliot was free to marry, he did not marry Hale. After some very painful interactions, the relationship ended in 1947. “Ten years later she received a second shock: Eliot, at age 68, had remarried, this time to Valerie Fletcher, his secretary and a woman almost 40 years younger. Devastated by the news, Hale, who had continued to teach at a variety of colleges and high schools since leaving Downer, retired from her post at Abbot Academy, bequeathed her Eliot letters to Princeton, and also sent many of the first editions and typescripts Eliot had sent her over the years.” Michelle Dean has written a little more about Hale and it is well worth a read: http://therumpus.net/2012/04/saturday...
I think Hale might’ve been lucky to escape Eliot who wrote the following: “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” But you can’t choose who you fall in love with.
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