Anita Brookner

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Anita Brookner

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1DameMuriel
Abr 26, 2007, 4:46 pm

I'm currently reading Look at Me by Anita Brookner. I'm strapped for time lately so it is taking a while to get through it and, as I result, I'm just not as into it as some of her others. What does everyone think of this book (if you've read it)? Just curious...

2almigwin
Abr 26, 2007, 5:14 pm

Don't read Anita Brookner if you are strapped for time. The world she puts you into is a delicate, slow moving, sensitive world of people who don't do very much, but feel a great deal. It is like listening to Debussy instead of Beethoven or Shostakovich. You have to slow down your mental metabolism and savor every sentence and every nuance of feeling. If you are stressed for time, read something that is more plot driven and faster moving, and come back to AB when you have peace and quiet and a hammock under a tree. I think all of her books are wonderful. But I've been retired for ten years and have nothing to rush me.

3DameMuriel
mayo 2, 2007, 5:18 pm

I've found this to be true with Anita and Ivy Compton-Burnett. The problem with me, and my lack of free time, is that I'm not big on plot driven books. I'm almost finished with Look at Me--I snatched a few quiet moments before bed last night--and I hit a point with it last night where it clicked...I sort of have to have that moment with Anita's books...where the thing that isn't really a thing happens and it is the big moment for the main character and everything falls apart...or comes together, depending on how you read it...It made me appreciate everything that had come before. It made me remember why I like her so much. Look at Me reminds me of Barbara Pym's The Sweet Dove Died...the lonely woman, clinging to her little routines...wanting to break out of them...being too selfish to break out of them...but I guess that is the case with many of their characters.

4almigwin
mayo 2, 2007, 5:33 pm

Dame Muriel: I'm glad you got to the point where Look at Me clicked, and you didn't toss it away. I think all her books repay attention. I often wonder whether her personal life was/is full of frustration and loneliness as so many of her heroines. She has had a great career as an art historian, expert on Greuze, and as a novelist but i certainly hope that she also has had some personal happiness. It doesn't seem like it from her books.

5charbutton
Editado: mayo 9, 2007, 5:35 am

I've just finished Hotel du Lac, my first Brookner. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I had trouble fixing the story in the 1980s; it felt more like the early 20th Century, with a woman being packed off to Switzerland to 'recuperate' after a moment of madness. While I think it underlines how society's acceptance of women behaving outside the accepted norms hasn't changed much, I found it a bit unsettling.

And very near to the end I got very frustrated at the main character's decision, or indecision! I think almigwin is right - this wasn't a book to read during my rush hour commute!

6liesel.friedrich Primer Mensaje
Feb 10, 2008, 2:28 pm

Greetings from a Californian who loves to read. I'm now baffled by my first Brookner, and am yearning to understand. Please, can anyone tell me why she is so well-respected? and/ or: Why did "Hotel du Lac" win the Booker? She seems to me to be terribly cold, emotionally, and barely worth my time...sort of like a dusty old Auntie one simply has to put up with. What am I missing?

7DameMuriel
Feb 11, 2008, 9:01 pm

This is an interesting question and I don't know that I can answer it. Brookner can be a bit cold and whenever I read her books I always feel as if they were written a long time ago.I feel as though she has to get inside my head before I can really relax and enjoy her books. Sometimes I'll start reading one and have to put it away for a later date before I finish it because I'm not in the right mood for it.
I don't think you should feel obligated to like Brookner. Her style isn't for everyone and her books, though I enjoy them, are a bit tedious sometimes. You may want to try one of her other books before you write her off forever...you know, just to see. Let me know if you have any luck.

8bleuroses
Mar 1, 2008, 10:52 pm

I read a few Brookners in my early 20's and, as much as I loved her cadence and sad, bookish women, I didn't quite 'get' the tragedy. A few weeks ago, I picked up The Misalliance, and now, in the shadow of turning 50, it held such painful reality that I had to set it aside.