Anita Brookner > Likes and Comments
I haven't got that far yet Susan. That said, I was in my local library earlier and saw they had about 10 Brookners on the shelf. All in lovely Penguin paperback editions. I picked one up at random, it's called Look At Me (1983)....
'Once a thing is known it can never be unknown.'
By day Frances Hinton works in a medical library, by night she haunts the room of a West London mansion flat. Everything changes, however, when she is adopted by charming Nick and his dazzling wife Alix. They draw her into their tight circle of friends. Suddenly, Frances' life is full and ripe with new engagements. But too late, Frances realises that she may be only a play thing, to be picked up and discarded once used. And that just one act in defiance of Alix's wishes could see her lose everything . . .
I have liked Brookner, though have read only her Hotel du Lac and Strangers. I see Look at Me is the 2nd listing on her author page here, which are listed by number of ratings. It has a higher average than Hotel. I have it on my wish list. The book I have on hand is Undue Influence, which I think I picked up at the library book sale. I would be happy for a buddy read of something by her, but perhaps nearer spring, as my current dance card is pretty full.
I love the new editions - wonderful covers.
A Start in Life
also sounds good.Love the blurb: Since childhood, Ruth Weiss has been escaping from life into books, from the hothouse attentions of her parents into the warmth of lovers and friends. Now Dr Weiss, at 40, knows that her life has been ruined by literature and that once again she must make a new start.
I also read and liked Hotel du Lac when it won the Booker, and was irritated recently by seeing it being slated somewhere or other as an unworthy winner. I don't think I've read any more by her, but am not sure why not.
Thanks, Susan.! No, I don't think I've seen Bradbury's article - I think this was a fairly recent piece by someone saying it shouldn't have won the Booker and being very rude and scathing about it - but I don't remember where I saw this piece and can't find it! Probably no great loss.
I have read 3 Brookner novels - Hotel du Lac, Latecomers and The Next Big Thing. Enjoyed them all but she can be a bit bleak and her vocabulary can be challenging...
I think it was more than the favourite book, by J G Ballard, didn't win that year, that was the issue. Hotel du Lac just got the brunt of the anger by those who wanted that particular book/author.
Anita Brookner is brilliant but her books are, as Hugh mentioned, bleak: exquisitely written but hardly "feel good" reads. What is so amazing about her is the fact that she manages to describe and illustrate so much in very little space: now word is wasted. As far as I know, she never felt compelled to write a "big" novel and the fact that she dependably published a new novel every year or two, I think, mitigates against her in the so-called literary world. The other astonishing thing about her writing is what she doesn't say--on more than one occasion, I've finished one of her novels and haven't been absolutely sure what happened--or didn't.
Very intriguing Liz. I am now even keener to sample her work.Thanks for the link Hugh.
Hugh wrote: "This was the article that prompted me to read Latecomers:https://www.theguardian.com/books/201..."
Thanks for this, Hugh. I'll add 3 to my over-burdened wish list, including Latecomers.
Chrissie wrote: "I have completed.... Hotel du Lac by Booker Prize winner Anita Brookner
Others like this more than I did"....
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thanks for this link to your review Chrissie
I plan to try Anita Brookner at some point.
I fear, like you, I might not enjoy her, and I want to, as so many people whose opinion I respect sing her praises
I have only read Hotel du Lac, I think, which I liked. I am open for a buddy read, if anyone wants to suggest something.
I read it in 2016, and gave it 4 stars, but can remember nothing about it. On that basis, I would be ready to try something else by Ms Brookner.
How about...Look At Me (1983)?
It's 192 pages and £2.99 for a Kindle edition
By day Frances Hinton works in a medical library, by night she haunts the room of a West London mansion flat. Everything changes, however, when she is adopted by charming Nick and his dazzling wife Alix. They draw her into their tight circle of friends. Suddenly, Frances' life is full and ripe with new engagements. But too late, Frances realises that she may be only a play thing, to be picked up and discarded once used. And that just one act in defiance of Alix's wishes could see her lose everything....
Re Anita BrooknerAs noted in my review, Kirkus wasn't thrilled with Hotel du Lac. They indicated that her first three novels were better. Maybe try one of those??????? These three are not available on audio so I will not be trying them.
I picked up Undue Influence at the Library book sale a year or so ago.In Undue Influence, acclaimed novelist Anita Brookner proves once again that even in the most closely circumscribed of lives, hearts can venture into unknown-and potentially explosive-territory.
Claire Pitt is nothing if not a practical young woman, living a life in contemporary London that is to all appearances placid, orderly and consciously lacking in surprise. And yet Claire's tangled interior life gives the lie to that illusion. She is prone to vivid speculation about the lives of others, and to fantasies about her own fate that lead her into a courtship so strange that even she wonders at its power to compel her. Martin Gibson and his chronically ill wife Cynthia come to depend on Claire to an extent that is nothing short of baffling, and yet Claire becomes ever bolder in her pursuit of their acquaintance-and, ultimately, of Martin's elusive affections. The result, a potent tale of urban loneliness and the chance intersections that assuage it, constitutes one of Brookner's finest and most psychologically acute achievements.
As to Hotel du Lac, I had an alternate view. My review was written in 2009, before I'd found ways of saying what I actually thought, but it's still 5-stars.
Exciting! Looking forward to it, Nigeyb. Thanks.P.S. Check out the Hilary Mantel and Ben Macintyre thread for news of upcoming titles that might interest you.
Nigeyb wrote: "I've scheduled Look At Me for November 2020" I'd join you if I could. Not being able to listen to it I will never know if I think it is better. I just know that back in he 80s, Kirkus could be relied on, although you did have to pay attention to every word. Amazon would quote only the favorable parts of what Kirkus said. Boy, did this annoy me!
I hope you all enjoy that read. I think I will be concentrating on books I have or that are readily available to me.
Nigeyb wrote: "I plan to try Anita Brookner at some point.
I fear, like you, I might not enjoy her, and I want to, as so many people whose opinion I respect sing her praises"
Oh me of little faith
Look At Me (1983) is superb
More at our Look At Me discussion...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I'm looking forward to more Brookner books
Alwynne wrote: "I think Brookner's a great writer but a bit too melancholy for me at the moment..."Alyynne made this comment on the "books you've just bought" thread however I've decided to reply over here.
Yes, based on Look at Me, my one and only Brookner, her novels are about loneliness, melancholy, isolation etc but I also detected defiance, individualism, a bit of humour, and a sort of redemption.
Talking of humour this, from Look at Me, made me laugh...
Problems of human behaviour still continue to baffle us, but at least in the Library we have them properly filed.
As you may have noticed, I currently have the zeal of the convert so please excuse my gushing however I conclude she is a stunning writer. Really economical - she conveys so much so concisely. I was really blown away by Look at Me.
But, you're spot on, her books would not be an obvious choice for any reader feeling fragile, and desirous of being uplifted or distracted.
So glad you like her, Nigeyb. I thought it was a wonderful suggestion for a buddy. I also really like the new, black and white, covers - although kindle doesn't really do them justice.
Yes, I love hearing people gush about books! I've never read Brookner but clearly need to.Susan, me too, loving those new monochrome covers.
Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes, I love hearing people gush about books! I've never read Brookner but clearly need to"Aw, thanks
I hope you enjoy her as much as I did RC
Just wondering if any of my new Brookner purchases would fit with the February Group Read Love & Romance theme...Family and Friends by Anita Brookner
Visitors by Anita Brookner
Strangers by Anita Brookner
A Closed Eye by Anita Brookner
Watch this space
Given that the Booker Prize winning Hotel du Lac (1984) narrowly missed out on winning our love and romance themed group read poll for February 2021, we have decided to do it as a buddy read in March 2021. Needless to say all are welcome and we'd love to see everyone who voted for it, and indeed anyone who didn't, taking part in the discussion in March 2021.
Hotel du Lac (1984)
The Times described it as...
“A smashing love story. It is very romantic. It is also humorous, witty, touching and formidably clever”
Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Why love?”
Hotel du Lac tells the story of Edith Hope, who writes romance novels under a pseudonym. When her life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, however, Edith flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to restore her to her senses….
Anita Brookner was a big discovery for me in 2020. We have a couple of upcoming Brookner reads...March 2021: Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (Buddy read)
November 2021: Visitors by Anita Brookner (20th Century Women Reading Challenge - 1990-1999)
I have been on a bit of a Brookner buying spree with a view to reading as many of her novels as I can fit in during 2021. If anyone is tempted by another buddy read after the success of Look at Me in November 2020....
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
...then please reply here and we'll make it happen
So far as I can guage all her novels are usually sub 200 pages so quick and easy to fit in
For those looking for more Brookner inspiration here's the latest entry on the interesting Brooknerian blog...
Anita Brookner was never one for easy hyperbole, only for that which was earned and justified by time. One wonders what she would have made of 2020. No doubt she would have reserved judgement.
Her essays and reviews are often at their most piquant when considering something from which she withholds praise. I've been reading 'Descent into the Untestable', a review in Soundings of a book of 1980 on regression in the arts from the eighteenth into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Analysis of large movements, notions such as the Enlightenment and Romanticism, will be familiar to readers of Brookner. In Providence (1982), Kitty Maule and her students mount lofty seductive arguments: Existentialism as a late manifestation of Romanticism - and the like.
But Dr Brookner herself would caution her own pupils: Art doesn't love you and cannot console you. Here she argues for the limitations of art. 'Artistic traditions are self-generating and at best reflexive. One cannot live by the light of ideas expressed in pictures, although their images will colour one's thinking'.
Mr Harbison, the author of the book under review, fails in Brookner's eyes to provide the necessary underpinning. Pictures, she counsels, occasionally need the corroboration of the written word: 'Quite simply, a different kind of information is being imparted'. Look at the writing, she says, and you'll find that the eighteenth century, though it may have been when it all went wrong, might also have been the last time when 'it might just have come out right'. She repeats this line, I think, in an early interview. It is the writers, not the painters, who will save us - those writers who are, as she said, saints for the godless. Montesquieu and Diderot she reveres: 'neither of them afflicted with any beliefs they could not verify'. Fragonard and David do no more than 'weight the argument'.
If we ever wondered why Brookner turned always from art to writing, or perhaps why she never herself seems to have picked up a brush, the answer is here. Here also is her answer to suggestions of the Apocalypse, for the unfortunate Mr Harbison apparently believes we are living at the end of the world:
"If the Apocalypse is really just around the corner the correct attitude would seem to be one of lively curiosity."
https://brooknerian.blogspot.com/2020...
Wise words to end with from the wonderful Dr B
Nigeyb, I really enjoyed this Brookner read too. I have The Next Big Thing and Latecomers so I’d be interested in a buddy read of either of those. I wouldn’t join if it’s a book I don’t own, I’m determined to chop that TBR down this year!
I haven't read Brookner yet - Hotel du Lac will be my first - but I'm very intrigued by all the enthusiasm here and have a good feel about her. All of which is to say that I may be persuaded depending on how I get on with HdL. Pamela, I'm so impressed by your restraint! I say the same thing every year... :)
Pamela wrote: "Nigeyb, I really enjoyed this Brookner read too."
Hurrah
"I have The Next Big Thing and Latecomers so I’d be interested in a buddy read of either of those"
One of the books I have in my collection is....
The Next Big Thing (2002)
...so let's do it Pamela
Any particular time work best for you? February or March works for me.
My edition is 246 pages.
Roman Clodia wrote: "I haven't read Brookner yet - Hotel du Lac will be my first - but I'm very intrigued by all the enthusiasm here and have a good feel about her. All of which is to say that I may be persuaded depending on how I get on with Hotel du Lac."
We'll make a Brooknerian out of you yet RC!
More about The Next Big Thing....
'This would soon be a new day, all too closely resembling the others, the normal days of his present existence, in which nothing happened nor could be expected to happen'
At seventy-three Herz is facing an increasingly bewildering world. He cannot see his place in it or even work out what to do with his final years. Questions and misunderstandings haunt Herz like old ghosts. Should he travel, sell his flat, or propose marriage to an old friend he has not seen in thirty years? Herz believes that he must do something, only he doesn't know what this next big thing in life should be . . .
'Beautifully written, it draws you in and holds you fast' Daily Mail
Nigeyb wrote: "Any particular time work best for you? February or March works for me.."February works for me, especially if it’s mid-month (I’m guessing it will be as it’s a Buddy Read?)
Could I join this Buddy Read for The Next Big Thing?
Pamela wrote: "February works for me, especially if it’s mid-month (I’m guessing it will be as it’s a Buddy Read?)"Great news Pamela - yes, a mid month buddy read
Margaret wrote: "Could I join this Buddy Read for The Next Big Thing?"
Absolutely Margaret - we'd be delighted to have you join in
If anyone else is tempted then you are very welcome
The more the merrier!
Great to see you joining us Margaret, looking forward to this.
OMG she is my favourite author ever. I have read 6 or 7 of her books and I bought them all so I can read each and every one of her novels. Even I got one of her art books where she talks about the life of the artist because she is an art historian. I'm obsessed and would recommend her to everyone who wants to read something different and very deep and profound. I also tried to find a fan group page here but I didn't so decided to create one myself. Would love to talk about her more with people who have read her novels: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
I read The Next Big Thing a few years ago, and can probably remember enough to contribute to the discussion. My most recent Brookner was her first novel A Start in Life.
That's great news HughThanks for such a fulsome endorsement Viktoria. I've still only read one of her novels but I really enjoyed it and have bought quite a few to read this year.
Look At Me (1983) is superb
More at our Look At Me discussion...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I'm looking forward to more Brookner books
I'm poised to start reading....The Next Big Thing (2002)
...in readiness for our buddy read in a couple of weeks. Excited to get back to Brookner...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Margaret wrote:
"Could I join this Buddy Read for The Next Big Thing?"
Pamela wrote:
"February works for me, especially if it’s mid-month (I’m guessing it will be as it’s a Buddy Read?)"
Hugh wrote:
"I read The Next Big Thing a few years ago, and can probably remember enough to contribute to the discussion. My most recent Brookner was her first novel A Start in Life."
Viktoria wrote:
"OMG she is my favourite author ever"
Roman Clodia wrote:
"I may be persuaded depending on how I get on with Hotel du Lac."
Nigeyb wrote: "I'm poised to start reading....
The Next Big Thing (2002)
...in readiness for our buddy read in a couple of weeks. Excited to get back to Brookner"
Hoping to finish The Next Big Thing (2002) later this evening. Really looking forward to discussing it.
I saw this on the Brooknerian about both The Next Big Thing and reading AB more generally....
New to Anita Brookner? Let me suggest a route into and through what a critic (unfavourably but memorably) once called the long dark corridor of her fiction.
1. Start with a late-period novel. Brookner's fiction divides roughly but usefully into three phases: the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s. The early work is inconsistent but often brilliant; the middle period is more settled, more even. In Brookner's last works we see a return to the unpredictability she started with, now allied to a greater assuredness of form and style. Start with The Next Big Thing (Making Things Better) (2002). Also try The Bay of Angels (2001) and The Rules of Engagement (2003). Scarier than the scariest horror story.
2. Next try the essential early Brookner: Look at Me (1983). A remarkable and quite extreme laying out of the Brookner manifesto. The final chapters contain some of the bleakest and most unsettling passages in the whole of English literature. Temper this with the novel of the following year, Hotel du Lac - not quite a comic reworking of Look at Me, but certainly much lighter.
3. Stay with the early phase for the moment and experience the full flowering of a quality often missed in Brookner's novels: compassion. Try Family and Friends (1985) or Latecomers (1988). 'Searchingly gentle,' said Ruth Rendell of the latter.
4. You'll probably need a break by now. Why not take a sidestep into the world of Brookner's criticism? She wrote for the TLS, the LRB, the Burlington, and prolifically for the Spectator. The Spectator's archive website is far from perfect, but it's free, and with a little effort you'll find Brookner gems aplenty.
5. The real solid substantial part of the Brookner oeuvre came in the 1990s. Magisterial is the word. Try A Family Romance (Dolly) (1993), A Private View (1994) or Visitors (1997). Unshowy, unfashionable, and made for the future.
6. Brookner's art criticism is of enormous value and always instructive. Easiest to get hold of are Soundings (1997) and Romanticism and Its Discontents (2000).
7. Finish your journey (with still much to enjoy) with either Brookner's bleak last novel Strangers (2009) or her funny sprightly first, A Start in Life (The Debut) (1981). You choose. You'll know what you like by then.
https://brooknerian.blogspot.com/2017...
With The Next Big Thing as the current buddy read and then Hotel du Lac in March and Visitor the challenge book in Nov it looks like Brookner's 3 main phases are covered. Thanks for sharing this blog!
A pleasure MargaretIt is indeed pleasing how our selections fit in with the three main phases
I finished The Next Big Thing last night - looking forward to our discussion
I saw this in a New York Times article about AB...Anita Brookner: A Starter Kit
The Debut: The novelist’s first work opens with a brilliant line — “Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.” — and establishes the themes that Brookner would revisit over the years.
Hotel du Lac: Her best-known work (which received the Booker Prize in something of an upset) is about a romance novelist on holiday in Switzerland.
Look at Me: My favorite of Brookner’s books is about a librarian whom no one seems to see, and contains what must be literature’s most depressing office holiday party.
Dolly: This story of a young woman and her elderly, quite monstrous aunt surprises by showing how family bonds can endure over the years.
Fraud: A woman of a certain age goes missing. This beautiful book isn’t a thriller but a fantasy for anyone who’s dreamed of leaving an unfulfilling reality behind.
The above is from In Praise of Anita Brookner by Rumaan Alam which you can read in full here....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/bo...
I have yet to read any of her books however her name comes up regularly on the wonderful Backlisted Podcast, and always in glowing terms.
2019 is the year I give her a try.
What about you?
What do you know about her?
What have you read?
Are you attracted to her work?
What do you think of Anita Brookner?
According to Wikipedia.....
Anita Brookner CBE (16 July 1928 – 10 March 2016) was an English award-winning novelist and art historian. She was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge from 1967 to 1968 and was the first woman to hold this visiting professorship. She was awarded the 1984 Man Booker Prize for her novel Hotel du Lac.
Brookner was born in Herne Hill, a suburb of London. She was the only child of Newson Bruckner, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, and Maude Schiska, a singer whose father had emigrated from Poland and founded a tobacco factory. Maude changed the family's surname to Brookner because of anti-German sentiment in Britain. Anita Brookner had a lonely childhood, although her grandmother and uncle lived with the family, and her parents, secular Jews, opened their house to Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecution during the 1930s and World War II. “I have said that I am one of the loneliest women in London” she said in her Paris Review interview
She was educated at the private James Allen's Girls' School. In 1949 she received a BA in History from King's College London, and in 1953 a doctorate in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.
Brookner never married, but took care of her parents as they aged. She died on 10 March 2016, at the age of 87.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_B...