Sunday, 9 April 2017

Rayon vert

What he was after was something smaller, a landscape, his own, from which he could view a mystical sunset, and where he might capture that fabled rayon vert, that brief streak of light before the darkness closed in.
Strangers, Ch. 7

The rayon vert, though never so named, and here given metaphorical force, will be familiar to Brooknerians. In A Family Romance Jane walks down a London street and the sky is of the palest green. Or else, from The Bay of Angels, Zoe and Adam wandering out into a 'beautiful greenish dusk'.
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4 comments:

  1. Sadmouth23 July 2020 at 13:55

    Sometimes Brookner strikes me as quite Rohmerian. Much bleaker, of course, and perhaps even truer to life, even though I find Rohmer one of the 'truest-to-life' filmmakers there are. But Hotel du Lac could have been an exquisite Rohmer film, for example. (Le rayon vert, of course is one of Rohmer's films.)

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    1. The Brooknerian23 July 2020 at 16:22

      Very good to hear from you. Thank you for the recommendation.

      Delete
  2. Sadmouth23 July 2020 at 22:06

    I am simultaneously discovering Brookner and the contents of your blog and I was not sure if it's the done thing to comment on posts as old as this one, but there it is. I've just started on The Next Big Thing...

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    1. The Brooknerian24 July 2020 at 06:42

      Who knows what the done thing is in this arena?! Comments are always welcome. They reassure me I am not merely talking to myself. The Next Big Thing is probably my favourite. When I read it in 2001 when it was published I thought it was merely a late novel 'for the fans'. Now I see its true daring and verve. The depths of the suffering, the voluptuousness of the writing.

      Delete

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