work continues to be utterly compelling. This, her 19th novel, follows the usual pattern: a single, bookish woman, whose literary life is dominated by loneliness and the seeming impossibility of marriage, has her forlorn equilibrium disturbed by an unsuitable attraction. Claire Pitt, at 29 one of Brookner's younger alter egos, is financially independent, clever, emancipated but empty. When Martin Gibson comes down to the basement in the second-hand bookshop where she works, Claire is beguiled. Her desire to be part of the story she tells herself about Martin's probable life leads her to provoke the quiet crisis so indicative of a Brookner dénoument. Brookner, who is seen by some critics as the embodiment of Jamesian exactitude, as almost prissy, is really quite the opposite. An almost pathological writer, Brookner returns again and again to her notion of the inability of modern women to think of marriage as something that will rescue them--and yet who are pulled towards the ideal (an ideal they easily deconstruct) of a romantic saviour. The ubiquity of a particular, melancholic despondence saturates her work; disappointment dominates. Despite the humour, the erudition, the classical elegance of her prose, Brookner is a modern, bitter writer. Few writers have the ability to create such complete characters and then dissect their motives so clearly. Few writers have the skill to delineate the emotional complexity of the domesticated manners that mark our inability to communicate with one other. Undue Influence is another triumph of profound, psychological investigation from one of England's finest writers. --Mark Thwaite
stately hotel in Switzerland. During her stay she befriends some of the other guests, each of whom has his or her own tale. Edith struggles to come to terms with her career and love--the lack, the benefits, and the meaning thereof.
Advantages: good book for character study Disadvantages: doesn't help in cheering you up much
...I read Hotel du Lac by AnitaBrookner some years ago. Alex Mayer provides a brief summary of what actually happpens in the novel and he is also correct in mentioning that it is a fairly thin book. However, don't be surprised if you get small prints.
Anyway, what struck me as I was reading the novel was it's sterility and lack of life. Perhaps, it was due to the fact that I was only 14 when i read the novel. Upon further research, I found that AnitaBrookner does tend to take a more feminist stance towards certain issues especially those pertaining to relationships and it shows in her style of writing and in the strength of her character.
The main character, Edith Hope, seemingly frail and in need of this holiday to nurse a broken heart, as well as, to write a novel is in fact quite resilient and will not sucuumb to being a pure object...
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Advantages: Booker prize-winning author Disadvantages: I want her to write more books!
...Make sure this one isn't...
Fraud is the story of a woman named Anna Durrant, who is a spinster in her 50s, having devoted her life so far to looking after her mother, who dies after being ill for some time. What is so magnificent is not the plot itself but the effortless way AnitaBrookner unravels human emotions, fears, thoughts and feelings.
At the beginning of the book we discover that Anna has gone missing, and then the book takes us back in time to find out more about her.
Anna has only a small circle of contacts- Lawrence Halliday the doctor, of whom she was fond and whom her mother hoped she would marry, but who has married Vickie, a younger and more frivolous woman. She has her penfriend in Paris, Marie-France, with whom she exchanges letters, and occasionally visits. And finally she has occasional companionship from Mrs...
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