The Brooknerian

In an  earlier post  we discussed the conservatism, the limitations, of Brookner's musical references. I went to the Frankfurt Opera on Wednesday, to a performance of Gluck's Ezio , around which there are (as far as I know) no Brooknerian associations. All the same the evening was richly Brooknerian. One was surrounded by dressy mittel -Europeans; Brookner wouldn't have looked out of place. Oldsters in ancient finery; youngsters in smart bright trousers; neurasthenic young girls; glamorous couples; aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, family and friends; velvets, brocades, necklaces, jewels, patent-leather shoes, fancy glasses, fancy scarves, and everywhere the decorous behaviour and measured tones of cultured leisured moneyed Germany.

Brookner makes reference now and again to Goethe. Family and Friends begins with an epigraph from Werther . At least one later Brookner novel ( Altered States ?) namechecks Elective Affinities . The Frankfurt Goethehaus looks at first like a genuine eighteenth-century house but like many old-looking buildings in Germany it is in large part a postwar reconstruction. In another part of the building there's a small art gallery: Tischbein, Fuessli, Hackert, minor Caspar David Friedrich. Brookner's comment somewhere about Friedrich's threadbare religious imagery apparently spoilt for ever  Brian Sewell's  appreciation of the painter.

'May' ( Visitors ) and indeed 'Brookner' ('Like calling yourself Batehoven!'*) were efforts at anglicisation, and not always successful. Brookner's Jews are identifiable, possibly, by their names; in other ways the information is no more than hinted at. It's seldom more explicit than: [Herz] was grateful that [his parents] had died naturally, in their own home, a fate denied to so many of their kind. The Next Big Thing , Ch. 9 In several of the early novels there is a contrast, a conflict, between the uncertain identity of the Jewish protagonist and the solidly Protestant object of her interest. The Haffenden interview explores this point. But in many of Anita Brookner's novels there's little or no mention of Judaism, and the lead characters have very English names: Elizabeth Warner, Alan Sherwood. Brookner described herself as 'a lapsed Jew - if such a thing were conceivable' (Haffenden). The Bruckners / Brookners had come to En...

At the Staedel, a Brooknerian moment: a substantial exhibition of Watteau's drawings. How many of the more than fifty pieces did Brookner know? In the bibliography to the accompanying book, one was sorry not to see her name. The exhibition was set out over several rooms and all but unvisited. At first the figures in the drawings withheld their message, but gradually one grew to appreciate their poised, pointed watchfulness, their effortful staginess. For more on Watteau, see an  earlier post.

Brookner tended to avoid conflict, not to say contact, with her literary peers, but Martin Amis expressed deep annoyance at her review of his novel Night Train . Brookner had written: It may be post-modem; it is certainly post-human. There are few facts that are without disclaimers, few acts that are unambiguous. To read it is to undergo a temporary brain dysfunction […] a narrative which sets out to celebrate the demotic but ends up so out of hand that it is experienced as an assault on the reader's good faith. Spectator , 26 September 1997 Brookner distrusted postmodernism ('Updike goes post-modern,' ( Spectator   27 February 1993) she commented uncertainly, in her review of Memories of the Ford Administration ). One hears less about postmodernism nowadays, but it was all the rage when I was young. And Brookner's postmodern novel? Surely Incidents in the Rue Laugier ? ...those few notations - ' Dames Blanches. La Gaillarderie. Place des Ternes. Sang. ...

Further to an  earlier post: It had been widely predicted and even firmly stated that the winner would be J G Ballard’s  The Empire of the Sun . In the event, the prize went to  Hotel du Lac  by Anita Brookner. As it happens, Brookner, along with Carmen Callil, had come to supper with my partner and me the previous Saturday, an evening mainly devoted to talking about a now forgotten writer, Edith Templeton.* As Brookner left at the end of the evening, I called after her, 'Good luck next Thursday'. This was not well received: 'You of all people ought to know that I was very lucky to have been shortlisted. There's no likelihood whatsoever of my winning. Good night.'  Martyn Goff, ‘Playing Silly Bookers’, New Statesman , 23 October 1998  My own first taste of this experience was in 1984, with  Small World . Like everybody else, I expected J G Ballard to win with  Empire of the Sun . No one was more astonished than Anita Brookner when Richard...

She handed me a brochure which showed a Jacobean-style mansion in a sunlit snowy landscape. Inside was another photograph of a log fire in a marble fireplace wreathed with holly. The first thing to register was the price charged for this three-day Christmas break, which struck me as excessive, although this apparently was what people were prepared to pay for the privilege of being taken in at a problematic time of year ... Feeling slightly sick I noted that Christmas Day would be marked by full English breakfast, morning coffee, with a visit from more carol singers, traditional Christmas lunch, followed by tea with Christmas cake. Dinner would consist of a Scandinavian smorgasbord. A Family Romance , Ch. 7 Brookner loves to be disgusted. The description of Dolly's vulgar Christmas in a Bournemouth hotel runs to a page or more. We are presented with the full horrifying details of the proposed extravaganza. A good deal of cultural knowledge is naturally required to make sense o...