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Hotel du Lac

3.49 of 5 stars 3.49 · rating details · 4,774 ratings · 302 reviews

In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Why love?" It tells the story of Edith Hope, who writes romance novels under a psudonym. When her life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, however, Edith flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of...more

Paperback, 192 pages

Published October 3rd 1995 by Vintage (first published 1984)

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Nov 14, 2010 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, whats-all-the-fuss-about

A very slow, mournful novel set in an end-of-season hotel which may - just may - be a metaphor or sumpin. Everything happens in slowmo - walks, meals, coffee, tea, cakes, clothes (pages of those), more walks, mothers, daughters, gloomy memories, walks, talks, a small dog, gauntness, autumnal colours, pallor, crepuscularity, more damned walks, more wretched meals, the god damned dog again, more clothes, and on p 143 this:

"my patience with this little comedy is wearing a bit thin"

It's a ghastly vi...more

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May 07, 2009 Cynthia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2009

This book cut WAY too close to the bone for me. I can't decide if I want to read everything she's ever written or banish her forever.

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Sep 24, 2012 Jesse rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: brit-lit, read-in-2012

A novel that seems to play out like some forgotten old black and white European film projected a few frames a second slower than it should be, so every gesture and every word seems to bear a heavy, languorous weight. Indeed, one might be tempted to call it a parody if it for even for a moment wavered in it seriousness, but it never does. Brookner writes in dense, lengthy paragraphs that seem like blocks of ice that must be fastidiously chipped through, reflecting the general mindset of the intro...more

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May 25, 2007 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone, especially writers

A quite book, beautifully so. The simple prose is deceiving--the book is not simple, but elegant and superbly crafted. The words wrap you like the mist that weaves in and out of the landscape. A story of an older woman on a vacation alone. Loved it.

Anyone who has ever contemplated or experienced the noisy quiet that happens when you are by yourself but surrounded by others who are all there together.

Please read it.

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Jan 02, 2011 CoffeeBook Chick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner surprised me. The first forty or so pages, while beautifully written, were a tad tough to meander through at times. But then, oh then, all of a sudden, and at some point I can't recall, I was quite happy -- it pulled me in and although it's a quiet and contemplative story, it was really quite interesting and I felt at home with it.

Edith Hope is a romance writer who writes under another name -- she's accomplished, but to be honest, she writes about feelings and eve...more Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner surprised me. The first forty or so pages, while beautifully written, were a tad tough to meander through at times. But then, oh then, all of a sudden, and at some point I can't recall, I was quite happy -- it pulled me in and although it's a quiet and contemplative story, it was really quite interesting and I felt at home with it.

Edith Hope is a romance writer who writes under another name -- she's accomplished, but to be honest, she writes about feelings and events that she's never sure she'll ever have, or at least have forever. She's withdrawn, and doesn't fit with her "friends."

Edith is sent away from "civilized" society in London to a quaint and quiet hotel in Switzerland following a scandal that it has been deemed should not occur amongst polite and learned men and women. While there, she encounters a sad variety of characters that initially seem almost so uninteresting, that they are interesting. Eventually, you are drawn into each one, into their nuances, their sad or internally destructive personalities. While one character, Mrs. Pusey initially impresses upon Edith that she is kind and lovely, it soon becomes evident that she's really just lacking in the same things that most of the hotel guests are without as well -- after all, why are they all sequestered in this hotel, away from family and friends, during a quiet time of season? It seemed to be that they all were suffering in some way.

Do not expect a flurry of events in the winner of the Man Booker Prize of 1984. Expect instead a quiet discussion, a studied review of a writer's perspective of those she meets and interacts with, amidst the background of an incredible hotel. There is not a hurry from one thing to another. It is a slow exercise of evaluation and word usage to describe each scene, moment, person. Could it be considered tedious and boring to some? Perhaps. Could it also be viewed as deceptively pleasing, slowly building the undercurrent of anticipation for something, something brilliant and cunning to breach the water line and unfold its secret? Yes.

At times, it was a bit humorous, but I found it to be an overall sad book, about people who were sad and who either were forced to be in exile by others, or simply had nowhere else that they could go. It's an insightful and thoughtful novel on love, loss, and regret. Although I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, I would say that if you like a quiet novel that delivers an introspective view on one's own life, then this sad little beauty is a book for you.

Every word is quotable in this beautiful and very short book, but this one I found delightful:
He was a man of few words, but those few words were judiciously selected, weighed for quality, and delivered with expertise. Edith, used to the ruminative monologues that most people consider to be adequate for the purposes of rational discourse, used, moreover, to concocting the cunning and even learned periods which the characters in her books so spontaneously uttered, leaned back in her chair and smiled. The sensation of being entertained by words was one which she encountered all too rarely. People expect writers to entertain them, she reflected. They consider that writers should be gratified simply by performing their task to the audience's satisfaction. Like sycophants at court in the Middle Ages, dwarves, jongleurs. And what about us? Nobody thinks about entertaining us.
I look forward to reading more Anita Brookner novels. Particularly when I learned from Thomas at My Porch that Ms. Brookner is now in her eighties and has written a book a year since her first published fiction novel in her early fifties.(less)

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Jun 28, 2008 Josie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: hotel-books

About how being coupled allows one to relax and behave badly, and the good behavior expected of single women. The main character is brittle and lonely, and the tenor of everything is like "overcooked veal" but still there is something about the way the character feels uncomfortable in the world, the way she is constantly constructing an edifice to protect herself from it, that is universal. There is also a remarkable perception about the ways women engage in frippery to exclude men, for example:...more

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Feb 11, 2009 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

In college, the women in the Chamber Singers group I belonged to sang:

"An ape, a lion, a fox and an ass,
Do show forth man's life as it were in a glass.
For apeish they are till twenty-and-one,
And after than lions till forty be gone.
Then wicked as foxes till three-score-and-ten,
And after that asses, and so no more men."

I can think of no comparable rhyme for women. Traditionally, a woman's life is divided into three stages: the maiden, the wife, and the crone. Yet compare these three stages to the...more In college, the women in the Chamber Singers group I belonged to sang:

"An ape, a lion, a fox and an ass,
Do show forth man's life as it were in a glass.
For apeish they are till twenty-and-one,
And after than lions till forty be gone.
Then wicked as foxes till three-score-and-ten,
And after that asses, and so no more men."

I can think of no comparable rhyme for women. Traditionally, a woman's life is divided into three stages: the maiden, the wife, and the crone. Yet compare these three stages to the four animals of a man's life: the man, in each stage, stands alone and self sufficient. A woman's stages are all dependent on men: she is a maiden, ripe with possibility, until she marries and has children, and then after her man is dead and gone and she is alone, she becomes a crone.

And what of those women who are neither maiden, wife, nor crone? The old word is "spinster." Anita Brookner's Booker Prize-winning novel, Hotel du Lac, tells the beautifully written story of a woman, Edith, who is too old to be a maiden, who is no one's wife, but who is not yet a crone. She makes her own living as did spinsters of yore; she "spins" tales and therefrom derives her living -- she is a romance novelist.

Edith -- having behaved badly -- is sent by her friends to rest, recuperate and perhaps repent, in a sleepy hotel in Switzerland. She is surrounded by women who unconsciously transgress the boundaries of maiden, wife, and crone: Jennifer is middle-aged and no virgin, yet portrays herself as ingenue and maiden. Monica is a wife who rather passive-agressively fails to bear children. Mrs. Pusey is old enough to be a crone, but comes across as a vital and vivacious wife.

In this hotel Edith meets a man, Mr. Neville, who is wicked as a fox. Mr. Neville seems to know Edith better than she herself, and imparts to her some very welcome and unwelcome truths. And it is Mr. Neville, who, accidentally, drives Edith to consciously reject for a second time these false and confining categories of maiden, wife, and crone.

Ms. Brookner wrote this book more than twenty years ago. I can think of two new categories that women fit into these days: "bunny" and "cougar." Both of these new categories, however, only serve to prove the rule; women are still defined by their relationship to men. This book affirms Edith's choice to reject all of these categories -- ancient and modern -- while recognizing that such a choice is neither easy nor respectable. (less)

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Jan 16, 2013 Jakey Gee rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

(I stayed at the Hotel du Lac in Vevey for work once and nicked as much stationery as I could, then set to reading this after ages looking for a second hand copy. Finally got to reading it after many months).

Small but super-concentrated.

For something so short, it asks big questions about ideals and compromises. It's a pretty profound meditation too on what it is to be a women (like I'd know) and full of strong portraits of different ways of doing that. We've got a spectrum here, from the ‘kept...more

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Oct 18, 2012 Vibina Venugopal rated it 3 of 5 stars

Edith Hope is an English author whose genre is romance , now she is on a self imposed exile at a Swiss hotel, during off season ..There she meets fellow guests majority being women...These are array of people whom she meets include Mrs Iris Pussey, widow ,she is rich and glamorous accompanied by her devoted daughter Jennifer , she is too thin which is amusingly put in, Lady Monica and her dog, Madame de Bonneuil, she sent out of her home by her sister in law, hence she carries an aura of that of...more Edith Hope is an English author whose genre is romance , now she is on a self imposed exile at a Swiss hotel, during off season ..There she meets fellow guests majority being women...These are array of people whom she meets include Mrs Iris Pussey, widow ,she is rich and glamorous accompanied by her devoted daughter Jennifer , she is too thin which is amusingly put in, Lady Monica and her dog, Madame de Bonneuil, she sent out of her home by her sister in law, hence she carries an aura of that of a depressed soul being ..Initially Edith's decision to come over to this old fashioned hotel is a mystery..She composes letters to David that describe her day today affair in the hotel with immense details of the people she has been meeting..But David is a married guy , and thankfully this is not the main focus of the book then enters Mr Neville rich and single , guest of the hotel and they slip into a relation which you can't define ii to be very romantic..

She discovers the true nature and feelings of these illustrious lives of these people, which in turn makes her to contemplate upon her life, her decisions, her mistake and the life she has been living so far...People are pretending to hide away from their unhappiness, disdain and self- melancholy...The more she gets closer to these women the more she reflects upon things finally getting a clear cut vantage...Through the novel we also feel a change in the way Edith sees things, her judgement on people that her rich experience has brought in her...Through the first half Edith spends much time guessing the age of mother daughter duo, later she lets things be..There are some eccentric , whimsy, funny moments all along...

The specialty of novel is that it is not the magic of the plot that drives you ahead but the characters ., their complexities and shedding up of the layers that they seem to carry around...Puseys's relationship with each other was weird and good at the same time ., as the novel progresses their true feelings for each other unfolds well and sound.. At times I felt the characters were under expressed revolving into an orbit of lethargy as I read through...The hotel itself carries an aura of old , yet not being classic about it and the residents somehow reverberated that spirit even more...I loved the overall calm, slow, steady pace of the book...The mix and match of words and sentence were simply brilliant to me...I would have loved it even more if the spirit of writing could transcend to the novel itself...Although I liked the book I couldn't figure what was so special about this book to win a Booker Prize...(less)

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Mar 20, 2012 knig rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, absolute-bollocks

And another one bites the dust. Another moping, myopic, single, disconsolate, unfulfilled, disenchanted woman shuffling the mortal coils resignedly and patiently waiting for until her numbers up.

Ok, but I am racking my brains: is there ANY book out there about a male spinster? Not a bachelor: that image implies a certain Sherlock Holmsean contentedness with the regularity of life, a smug sense of quiet self satisfaction that all is alright with the world, at precisely the moment when a woman ISN...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Courtney H. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookers

This was my second Booker re-read, with The Remains of the Day being the first. The Remains of the Day I reread to see if it still belongs in my top-favorite book list (it does); Hotel du Lac and Moon Tiger I reread because I couldn’t remember either of them well, or with much favor. I didn’t dislike either one, but I wasn’t captivated, either. While Moon Tiger was the real rediscovered treasure for me, I was pleasantly surprised to read Hotel du Lac again.
First, a history: I first read Hotel...more This was my second Booker re-read, with The Remains of the Day being the first. The Remains of the Day I reread to see if it still belongs in my top-favorite book list (it does); Hotel du Lac and Moon Tiger I reread because I couldn’t remember either of them well, or with much favor. I didn’t dislike either one, but I wasn’t captivated, either. While Moon Tiger was the real rediscovered treasure for me, I was pleasantly surprised to read Hotel du Lac again.
First, a history: I first read Hotel du Lac after reading The Famished Road (another all-time favorite and an upcoming reread to see if it should still claim its spot on that list) and The Remains of the Day (also on my all-time favorite, a spot solidified in a recent reread). I realized that these were both Booker winners, and that God of Small Things was another winner and that A Fine Balance had been short-listed for this prize I had never heard of before. So when I saw the sign on the cover of Hotel du Lac, I decided to pick it up; and was hoping to strike, if not the platinum of The Famished Road and The Remains of the Day, at least something as good as A Fine Balance (complex, funny, heartbreaking, brave . . . no pressure!). In other words, I went in with high hopes not just for great writing, but for a book that was utterly striking, something that just pierces its readers. I was, I admit, disappointed, and it probably put me off what has become the Booker quest for a good five years.
Which makes it sound like the book was awful; it wasn’t at all. It was just a bit nondescript I thought (erroneously, I think, as it turns out), and made me reevaluate whether all my as-yet-unread favorite books were really lurking among past Booker winners; it made me think that I had perhaps just gotten lucky with the 3 I had stumbled across thus far.
But in the interest of true comparison, I decided to give it another go. I was trying to be fair, which is stupid because who cares? But ended up being useful for me, because I could rediscover Hotel du Lac. It is, in many ways, Middleton’s Holiday from a female, rather than male, perspective. It is about a woman on holiday, and more specifically the psyche of a woman on holiday; it is at a typical holiday spot, a holiday spot for the privileged class as opposed to the middle class of Holiday; and the protagonist, the female holiday-goer, spends the novel piecing together her own thoughts, emotions, and recent memories, dissecting her recent failed life (here, an affair and broken engagement whereas the Holiday focused on the character’s divorce), and alternately befriending and criticizing the fellow holiday-goers. The parallels to Middleton are numerous, perhaps most particularly [SPOILERS!] with the way both books end – different outcomes, but both featuring a distinct crumpling of characters who never bowled you over with their strength, but who you thought might have a few more kicks in them then they ultimately ended up having.
And perhaps this is why I wrote the book off as nondescript – Edith has promise and sort of fizzled a bit at the end; but then, this is perhaps why the book, though infuriating at times, is also so masterful. It is not Brookner who promised but failed to deliver (like Jhabavala, author of Heat and Dust); it is that Brookner tells the story of a somewhat strong but somewhat malleable protagonist who is trying to sift through her own psychology to parse her own life. Edith, who writes romance novels under a pseudonym, has been exiled by Society (led by her neighbor and best friend) due to indiscretions – not explained until later in the book – to a rural hotel at the end of its tourist season. The book is focused on the internal workings of Edith, about her self-discoveries, her growth, and her decisions regarding her growth. Certainly frustrating at times, but not surprising perhaps. Edith does not grasp for greatness, in the end, in the independent way that I hoped she would, but nor were her decisions entirely unexpected or unreasonable, given what Brookner taught us about her. She was a sympathetic character, I thought, more so than the character of Holiday.
I will say that I was bugged by what I think was Brookner’s sexism. Of course, some of that was Edith and Edith even recognized her own sexism (once, for a moment, before slipping right back into it); but some also was Brookner, I think. Perhaps she meant us to know that Edith was quite sexist, and that Neville was not merely a rational, wounded business man but actually a nasty, controlling bit of work. But I’m not convinced, particularly given how Brookner (and not just Brookner-via-Edith’s-point-of-view) dealt with the other female visitors at the hotel; her attempts at sympathy read falsely at times, and even sympathy played like an insult or at least an eye-roll. They were somewhat insufferable, yes, but that’s about all Brookner allowed them to be. Useful for the story, perhaps, but disappointing during the read itself.
Still – perhaps because I’m sadly used to sexism in books, which is a whole other can of worms – the book was largely enjoyable and well worth the re-read. I greatly underestimated the psychology of the book, that the prize committee clearly recognizes that the most pointed stories might not be the large sweeping stories, but rather the careful, narrowly focused psychological exploration of a single, rather normal person’s life. Because of course – they are not normal; they are special, unique even as they tend unsatisfyingly toward mediocrity, because they are human and therefore interesting – though, of course, interesting only when they are wielded by a good writer, which are hard to come by and which Brookner obviously is.
(less)

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Mar 11, 2012 Book Concierge rated it 3 of 5 stars

Edith Hope is a woman of a “certain age,” who has been shipped off to the quiet, secluded Hotel du Lac to wait for some sort of scandal, in which she played a central role, to die down. She is morose, and rather lost – without any real purpose, except to wait for the hubbub to blow over. Despite her name, Edith really has no hope; she is bored and boring. She wants to be left alone, but she’s lonely. The other guests are similarly hiding or waiting for something to happen, and so the days pass....more

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Apr 07, 2011 bobbygw rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: feminism, fiction

Beautifully written, intelligent, reflective, understated and elegiac in tone, with a pervading sadness that runs throughout the novel and her characters' lives - perhaps something that could be said of much of Brookner's fiction? - this is a charming and thoughtful novel focused on Edith Hope, a successful middle-aged novelist of romantic fiction (though a realist about the world of the living, she never denies her heroines the mythical joys of true romantic journeys and endings), who comes to...more Beautifully written, intelligent, reflective, understated and elegiac in tone, with a pervading sadness that runs throughout the novel and her characters' lives - perhaps something that could be said of much of Brookner's fiction? - this is a charming and thoughtful novel focused on Edith Hope, a successful middle-aged novelist of romantic fiction (though a realist about the world of the living, she never denies her heroines the mythical joys of true romantic journeys and endings), who comes to stay at the genteel, select Hotel du Lac, an old world establishment in Switzerland, to reflect on recent events in her life.

Through the course of the novella (it's only 184 pages), Edith comes to engage with the hotel's other residents, all beautifully drawn. There's Monica, with her tiny dog that she passes her hotel food to (she has an eating disorder, and focuses mainly on cakes, coffee and cigarettes to keep her going), while vaguely thinking about her marriage that has come to an impasse; the relentlessly self-obsessed, rich, always-on-display and well-dressed, elegant Mrs Pusey and her shadow daughter, Jennifer (acting as truncated Greek Chorus to Mrs Pusey's endless exclamations about her own life and opinions); stalwart, sad, alone Mme de Bonneuil, dumped by her only son to live for part of each year at the hotel; and Mr Neville, charming, devilish, always insightful, but without sentiment or love, who intrigues Edith and triggers her considering fundamental changes in her life. He does this by questioning her mode of living and her way of thinking about love and relationships and self (he's an advocate of self-interested living only), and proposing marriage (but not love).

Faced with a pattern and routine in her life that Edith finds both comforting and sad, including her affair with a married man, Mr Simmons, and for which she is typically pigeon-holed, she is regarded as less than she really is in terms of character and depth. Such conflicts act as catalysts that, combined, conspire to a decision that ultimately leads her to the Hotel du Lac.

The dialogue and characterisation are consistently rich, entertaining and often provoke the reader into reflecting on his or her own approach to love and a life worth living, and what this says about ourselves. At the end of the novella, Edith's decision and next step, reflects her full awareness of her life to date, and the options available to her, including that of taking a radically different, perhaps more positive (self-interested) approach to her life, her decision is very much her own and true to who she is.

A moving meditation on personal choices, love and life-changing decisions and ways of living. Highly recommended. (less)

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Dec 31, 2009 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Brookner, Anita. HOTEL DU LAC. (1984). ****. This was Ms. Brookner’s fourth novel, and won the Booker Prize in its year of publication. As seems to be the case with her books, the protagonist is a woman, Edith Hope. She is “in disgrace,” and has been hurried off to a proper Swiss hotel, Hotel du Lac, to think things over and take charge of her life. She is a writer of romance novels under a pen name and has done very well at it. We don’t learn what her ‘disgrace’ is until about halfway through t...more Brookner, Anita. HOTEL DU LAC. (1984). ****. This was Ms. Brookner’s fourth novel, and won the Booker Prize in its year of publication. As seems to be the case with her books, the protagonist is a woman, Edith Hope. She is “in disgrace,” and has been hurried off to a proper Swiss hotel, Hotel du Lac, to think things over and take charge of her life. She is a writer of romance novels under a pen name and has done very well at it. We don’t learn what her ‘disgrace’ is until about halfway through the book, but it doesn’t seem to matter. She goes to the hotel – under the pressure from her friends – thinking that she will use the time to work on her latest book. She starts off with the best intentions, but soon begins to observe the other guests. It is end of the season, and the other guests, all women, seem to have been coming to this hotel for years on end. The first two women she meets are Iris Pusey, a good looking woman of indeterminate age who is obviously well off, and her daughter, Jennifer. There is a synbiotic relationship between the two that Edith takes a while to figure out. Mrs. Pusey is a widow, left in excellent circumstances by her dead husband. When Edith finds out how old she is, she is shocked. Mrs. Pusey is 79-years old. Her daughter, then, who looks like a young girl, though a little portly, must then be about 39. The two are mutually dependent for their respective lives and views of themselves. Next there is a tall, blonde woman who looks like a fashion model. Her name is Monica. Monica is disdainful of all the other guests and keeps company only with her dog, Kiki. Edith soon learns that Monica is staying at the hotel because of an ‘eating’ problem that she has. She manages to stir up her dinner on her plate, but ultimately ends up giving most of it to Kiki. Monica is extremely proud of her figure, believing that it alone embodies her true worth. There are others, and all of them fall under Edith’s magnifying glass. We do finally learn of the ‘disgrace’ experienced by Edith, but it doesn’t really have a bearing on the novel. What the novel is really about is how Edith manages to learn more about herself and her approach to life, which she ultimately validates, through comparison to the lives of those around her. She learns not to be ashamed or afraid of the directions she is taking or of the fact that she doesn’t think like other people. She learns, too, that it isn’t worth the effort to build a false persona to impress the people around her, because they aren’t worth impressing. Recommended.(less)

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Aug 16, 2009 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Hotel Du Lac" is at once a sad and celebratory novel. I never think of it as celebratory, as Edith the main character doesn't seem the type to celebrate, but in her own way I believe this story ends with her version of just that. By all conventions, Edith is a sad woman, writing romance novels to fill the void in her life that should be filled by a husband, children, etc. The novel is written from Edith's perspective and it does seem at first that even she believes herself to be beyond the symp...more

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Sep 10, 2009 Larry rated it 3 of 5 stars

I like Brookner's writing for its intelligence. I sometime struggle with some of her perspective as the female voice of the prime character in her novels but overall I think she provides a unique insight into the female character being feminist and anti-feminist at the same time if that makes sense. I was promted to pick it from the library by the recent article in The Observer on the Brooker Prize and the books which won that, in some opinions, shouldn't have won. This is an easy read and its w...more

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Jun 18, 2011 Jennyreadsexcessively rated it 4 of 5 stars

So much to reflect on with this Booker Prize winning novel. Edith, a romance novelist, is hiding out at the Hotel Du Lac in Switzerland until the furor over her earlier rash decision has quieted down. The hotel is populated with the most eccentric characters and Edith is fascinated by the women she meets. The novel questions whether Edith, a shy, mild-mannered woman, needs to loosen up a bit and be more assertive in order to find love and fulfillment. The novel's resolution was just perfect and...more

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May 16, 2012 Lori Baldi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: regular-novel

This was a bit of a unique book for me. I find it difficult to nail down in my mind and may come back to this review to edit in the future.

The story is about an English woman visiting in Switzerland at a hotel in the off season. That seems to be the metaphor for the story -- Off-season. The lady is alone and has felt alone her entire life with no siblings and distant parents. She has been the other woman in an affair with the married man who she believes to be her best friend in the world even...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Methodtomadness rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

A very quiet book, which nevertheless seethes with the sublimated emotion of women fundamentally outside of the marriage market of their day. Brookner's protagonist, the almost too-obviously named Edith Hope, sees herself as a kind of Virginia Woolf (an apt comparison in some ways, even to the tone of the writing in places), but Brookner's prose is less spare than Woolf's, and her character ultimately is more raw, more emotionally open, and even more sensible. Although a quick read, this isn't a...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Merve Özcan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romance, non-fantastic, contemporary

Mutlu son yok.

Kitap boyunca mutlu bir son aradım. Bu kadar kederin, yalnızlığın kalp kırıklığının ve silikliğin ardından Edith'in bunu hakettiğini düşünmüştüm. Bu mutlu sonunda bir erkekle olacağına karar kılmıştım.David'i ona layık görmedim adam öncelikle evliydi. Ya da bunun nikah günü terkettiği o kişi ile olacağınıda. Mr Neville ile belki bir şeyler yakalar diye hayal ettim.Ama bence kendi mutluluğu kendinde arayarak en doğru kararı vermiş oldu. Her ne kadar yalnız da olsa Edith evlendiğind...more

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Sep 11, 2012 Brittnie rated it 3 of 5 stars

The story line was a little slow moving, as there didn't seem to be much to it. Most interactions were predictable, but kept my interest simply through the inner dialogue of Edith. The book focused more on demonstrating the character of the character, than the actual events unfolding or events that took place. It was hard to follow what was actually happening, on account of a shift to Edith’s mind as she perceived the other guests.

I was a little disappointed at the purpose behind Edith being ord...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Lisa Sheffield rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was this month's book group title and most of them hated it -- now, considering I am the youngest one in the room by several decades I was surprised that there were a few of us who really did like it. It was written in the early 80s and some of the attitudes didn't translate well -- meaning that I just didn't get the reason Edith believed what the idiots who called themselves her friends said to her about "her last chance" and all that baloney with her "scandal". But it is a character based...more

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Jul 25, 2010 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read that this book was a classic and picked it up at a used book store some time ago. I didn't know if I was in the mood for it, but it was slim, so I figured it would be a quick read.

Despite the fact that the book was published in 1984, the story has an elegant feel to it and reminds me of books written closer to the turn of the 20th century. There is no technology and because of the hotel's remote location, I have a sense it was meant to be a timeless plot.

The character is likeable and mayb...more

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Jul 25, 2009 James Murphy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Moonrise over the lake, no matter if it's a pale one as I expected here, is always interesting. The moon is dependable. It regulates and comforts and completes our day in a satisfying way. So we notice it at first, how it balloons up plumply or slices the sky as a crescent. But once it's arrived we know its curve and features too well. We tend to allow it to sail on steadily over the lake until its well-worn groove takes it above our effortless line of sight. Occasionally, though, a combination...more

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Nov 28, 2008 Tracy rated it 3 of 5 stars

So I see that Henry James was reincarnated as an 80s women's fiction writer. I was ready to be very angry at this little book, but Brookner pulled it out of the ditch for me, thankfully. sometimes, i have little patience for civility in novels (as evidenced by the fact I punctuated my reading of this with Cintra Wilson's 'a massive swelling', about as polar opposite as you can get). Meaning, folks who are arranging marriages as businesses, as cerebral exercises in social climbing are so alien to...more

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Sep 29, 2010 Tommy rated it 3 of 5 stars

The ending was interesting and left you questioning up until the last page wondering what the protagonist's decision was going to be. The book for me though was ultimately just okay. Too slow at times, sad/depressing, and the writing didn't captivate me. This could be in part because I couldn't relate as well to the issues examined though.

The book mostly explores the situations/pressures that some women from what I'm guessing was the 1950s or 60s found themselves suffering under from both intern...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars

An author of romantic novels has made a social spectacle of herself and then come away, at the insistence of her friends, for a solitary holiday in a Swiss hotel in autumn, where she spends her days among the few off-season inhabitants of the hotel, all of them lonely misfits.

This Booker Prize winner is filled with distinctive characters and fine passages about the relations of the sexes. And its subtle story arc comes together in a well-crafted flourish in the final pages, just when so many thi...more

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Jun 22, 2011 lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I would actually give this book 4 1/2 stars if I could....

One of the first things that I have to say about this book is that, in some ways, it seems to me to be very Jamesian. In fact, one of the things that I thought while reading the last 40 pages or so is that in some ways, Edith reminds me of Isabel Archer. That is, this is what would have happened, or perhaps could have happened, to Isabel had she not chosen to marry Osmond, or maybe if she hadn’t chosen to go back to Osmond. The book also...more I would actually give this book 4 1/2 stars if I could....

One of the first things that I have to say about this book is that, in some ways, it seems to me to be very Jamesian. In fact, one of the things that I thought while reading the last 40 pages or so is that in some ways, Edith reminds me of Isabel Archer. That is, this is what would have happened, or perhaps could have happened, to Isabel had she not chosen to marry Osmond, or maybe if she hadn’t chosen to go back to Osmond. The book also reminds me of Daisy Miller in a way—set in Switzerland, a woman who cannot do as she wants because she is unmarried. However, Edith doesn’t share Isabel’s fate—a loveless marriage with a manipulative bastard—or Daisy’s fate—death. Edith’s last name is Hope, and it seems intentional on the author’s part that we read something into the story based upon this last name, another thing that I’ve always connected strongly with James. Of course, it helps that James’ name is dropped in the novel.

I’m getting ahead of myself, I think. This book is about, as I have already said, Edith Hope. She has come to the Hotel du Lac in Switzerland, on Lake Geneva. At the beginning of the story, we don’t know exactly why she is there, only that she has been practically forced there by people in her life as a way of getting rid of her because of some kind of disgrace that has fallen upon her. We do know that Edith is a romance writer, and she’s planning to finish her latest novel while she is at the hotel, and we also learn early on that Edith has been having an affair with a married man—David—to whom she writes letters. It’s clear that she loves him and misses him, and perhaps between the lines we read that she means very little to him. And we begin to think that this is the scandal that has sent her into this “exile”—that the truth of her affair with David has become known. Yet, that’s not the reason she’s at the Hotel du Lac at all. While there, she meets a number of ladies—Mrs. Pusey and her daughter, Jennifer, Monica and her dog Kiki, and Mme. de Bonneul. Edith becomes involved in these women’s lives and comes to understand why they too are here at the Hotel du Lac instead of at their own homes. It seems that they are all in exile for some reason or another.

Exile is a major theme of this book, and to be sure this exile is not voluntary. Several times throughout the book this exile is rendered in terms of the Hotel being a prison. But one of the primary themes of this novel is Edith’s attempt to discover what is the appropriate behavior for women. She doesn’t walk away with a “feminist” view of how women should behave, but she also doesn’t slip into the traditional categories that others would have her occupy. What affected me most about this book, though, is the last 50 or 60 pages. We learn why Edith has been disgraced, but I think more than that I really could identify with her. She reveals that she’s 39 (not far from my own age) and she’s a romantic and she wants to marry for love, not convenience or money or social status. She exists on the fringes of this society of women at the hotel, and on the surface they are friendly, but in reality, she doesn’t really mean anything to them at all. Near the end of the novel she is on the verge of making a choice that would close the door on what she’s been convinced to believe are romantic and foolish notions and in exchange accept a life of loneliness and a life without love but a life that would give her everything else she’s ever wanted. Love is what she would have to sacrifice to get everything else. The choice that she ultimately makes at the end of the novel is heartbreaking and inspiring and … I don’t know. Sad I think. Her last name is “Hope” but at the end I’m not sure how much hope there is that Edith will find what she’s looking for. That’s the saddest part about the novel. Yes, you’re glad that she makes the decision that she does (well, at least, I was glad) but at the same time you just aren’t sure that she’s ever going to be happy.

I have had some time to really think about this book since I finished it yesterday and I do think it is a lovely book. I haven’t read anything lately that’s produced this kind of reaction in me and I’m one of those people who says that that is the mark of a great book. I’d definitely recommend this book to my friends, especially my single thirty-something friends who aren’t sure where their own personal lives are going. What I admire about Edith is that she didn’t settle for what she could have had at the expense of everything she’d ever wanted. It would have been really easy for her to do that. Still, it just makes me sad to think that the reality is that she’s never going to find or have what she’s looking for.
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May 28, 2010 Vincent rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book about a writer appeals to anyone who has ever written and felt sometimes like they were watching a game that everyone else was playing except them. In this case, the game is marriage and all of the involved complications of finding a mate during Europe in the 1950s or thereabouts.
The writer in this book is visiting a once fancy, now slightly fading hotel in Switzerland where old money comes to relax and get away from dirty, post-industrial cities. Although it was hard for me to relate...more

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Jan 07, 2009 Carrie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was one of the best books I have read in a while, and certainly the first Booker Prize winner that I have read lately that I actually enjoyed. It is a simple story - a woman has come to a hotel in Switzerland to convalesce, or, rather, to hide from the world for a bit, after she has acted rather badly at home in England. As she heals, she interacts with the others in the small hotel. It doesn’t sound like much, but Brookner manages to make the emotional life of this woman, and the others in...more

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Quotes from Hotel du Lac

“Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.” — 47 people liked it

“My idea of absolute happiness is to sit in a hot garden all, reading, or writing, utterly safe in the knowledge that the person I love will come home to me in the evening. Every evening.'

'You are a romantic, Edith,' repeated Mr Neville, with a smile.

'It is you who are wrong,' she replied. 'I have been listening to that particular accusation for most of my life. I am not a romantic. I am a domestic animal. I do not sigh and yearn for extravagant displays of passion, for the grand affair, the world well lost for love. I know all that, and know that it leaves you lonely. No, what I crave is the simplicity of routine. An evening walk, arm in arm, in fine weather. A game of cards. Time for idle talk. Preparing a meal together.” — 8 people liked it

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