The much-loved Backlisted podcast (here) returns with a 'lockdown' episode that includes a lot of Anita Brookner talk. Prompted by discussion about Hotel du Lac, never the most representative Brookner, the chat meanders pleasantly on to the potential for compiling an Anita Brookner 'Top Ten'. At a loose end myself, though this week at the chalkface entertaining the children of keyworkers, I considered the question myself. I'm sure there are similar such lists elsewhere on this blog - I forget, and I don't particularly want to consult them anyhow.
Of course, Brookner - like Henry James, like Trollope, indeed like many prolific authors - passed through phases. Brookner's novels, I contend, fall into three, neatly divided by the decades she wrote in: the raw, vital 80s; the settled magisterial 90s; the bleak, experimental 2000s. A Brookner novel from the 80s seems very different from any of her final works - just as 'James I', 'James II' and 'the Old Pretender' can sound like quite distinct authors.
Another thing: I read Brookner's novels over time, more or less as she wrote them. My affection for certain works is determined by memories of my own life; my preferences at a particular time; associations the novels conjure.
But anyway...
10. A Start in Life (1981). Not actually a favourite, but surely indispensable, if for the astonishing opening chapter alone.
9. Visitors (1997). An elegant character study, and with such a sense of the English summer.
8. A Friend from England (1987). One of Brookner's most disaffected protagonists. Despite all appearances, this is extreme writing.
7. Strangers (2009). Brookner's last, and as bleak as lockdown.
6. Family and Friends (1985). A superior saga, told in the most exquisite and stylish prose.
5. Incidents in the Rue Laugier (1995). A deeply affecting study of regret and missed opportunities.
4. The Next Big Thing (2002). Often so well-heeled, Brookner's protagonists seem immune from real harm. But for Julius Herz the abyss is opening at his very feet.
3. A Family Romance (1993). 'Magisterial' is indeed the word.
2. Look at Me (1983). If only for the heroine's seemingly endless night trek through London: almost apocalyptic.
1. A Private View (1994). Poor George Bland, and his unsuitable passion. Yet Brookner's sympathy is boundless.
Of course, Brookner - like Henry James, like Trollope, indeed like many prolific authors - passed through phases. Brookner's novels, I contend, fall into three, neatly divided by the decades she wrote in: the raw, vital 80s; the settled magisterial 90s; the bleak, experimental 2000s. A Brookner novel from the 80s seems very different from any of her final works - just as 'James I', 'James II' and 'the Old Pretender' can sound like quite distinct authors.
Another thing: I read Brookner's novels over time, more or less as she wrote them. My affection for certain works is determined by memories of my own life; my preferences at a particular time; associations the novels conjure.
But anyway...
10. A Start in Life (1981). Not actually a favourite, but surely indispensable, if for the astonishing opening chapter alone.
9. Visitors (1997). An elegant character study, and with such a sense of the English summer.
8. A Friend from England (1987). One of Brookner's most disaffected protagonists. Despite all appearances, this is extreme writing.
7. Strangers (2009). Brookner's last, and as bleak as lockdown.
6. Family and Friends (1985). A superior saga, told in the most exquisite and stylish prose.
5. Incidents in the Rue Laugier (1995). A deeply affecting study of regret and missed opportunities.
4. The Next Big Thing (2002). Often so well-heeled, Brookner's protagonists seem immune from real harm. But for Julius Herz the abyss is opening at his very feet.
3. A Family Romance (1993). 'Magisterial' is indeed the word.
2. Look at Me (1983). If only for the heroine's seemingly endless night trek through London: almost apocalyptic.
1. A Private View (1994). Poor George Bland, and his unsuitable passion. Yet Brookner's sympathy is boundless.
I have just discovered this through Twiter and as a devoted Brookner reader,it was a very happy find!
ReplyDeleteGlad it appeals! Many thanks for comment.
DeleteMy Top 3:
ReplyDelete3. A Family Romance
2. A Friend from England
1. Visitors
I read all her novels except your numbers 6, 4 and 1 - I have problems to "get into" these three novels although I enjoyed very much all the other 21.
Kind regards from Cologne,
Björn
bjoern.lund@freenet.de
Many thanks for your comment. I like your three very much too - such close character studies. Ah, I miss being able to visit Germany!
DeleteAnd I hope to travel to London at the beginning of July this summer... we will see.
DeleteNo Latecomers?! (I've only read Latecomers and A Start in Life but come on!)
ReplyDeleteOh, Latecomers! I could choose them all! That moment in the restaurant when Fibich says he should have stayed with his mother on the platform...
ReplyDeleteMust read Latecomers again... I cant remember this scene.
DeleteChapter 14 - p. 215 in my edn. A knocked-over glass of water is practically the only indication of disorder.
DeleteI read Latecomers recently and was rather disappointed. Shock-horror, I thought it was more like a soap opera than a novel and the anguish of the individuals didn't have scope to distil. It started with me though after I finished .. and i certainly do remember that moment.
DeleteYes, I agree that some of Brookner's novels can become tangled in too much plot. Her best are those where she remembers Woolf's comment about plot, and her own about true novels solving moral problems and all the rest being mere literature.
DeleteHello and good evening.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are well and staying safe. Thank you so much for sharing your favourite novels by AB. I am glad to see the novel “Look at me” as your second choice. The narrator’s voice stays with me when she said how she could have written a treatise on melancholy and this following sentence: “Next to melancholy in our filing system is madness, and this section too is heavily patronised.”
Here AB is possibly referring to The Warburg Institute in London. Famous for its library, the Mnemosyne Atlas, and the art historians who came to London from Germany for refuge during the Second World War and they became lecturers at the Courtauld Institute. Aby Warburg himself suffered from a mental illness. Warburg had many famous scholars including Frances Yates who wrote a book on “The Art of Memory” and above all, Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl who collaborated a treatise/thesis on “Saturn and Melancholy”, re-published last year by McGill-Queen's University Press after it was out of print for many years.
I am quite sure that AB would have read and studied this book when she was using the library for her own art historical research at the Warburg Institute.
I cannot decide which novel would be my most favourite AB’s novel. I do love "Brief Lives" and "Undue Influence". Sadly, there is nothing to write home about as far as the male characters are concerned in both of these two novels.
Thank you so much once again for keeping our spirits up with your delightful posts in such abnormal times for our minds need to take flight even if our bodies are constrained.
Yours sincerely,
ASD
Very good to hear from you, and thank you for the valuable background detail on Look at Me. I sometimes wonder whether one or two of the library regulars may have been inspired by Phoebe Pool, the woman Anthony Blunt encouraged Brookner to visit. It was only much later, when Spycatcher was published, that Brookner discovered the true nature of the information she had been asked to glean from Miss Pool. Brookner wrote in The Spectator a searing account of the experience, and her horror at finding she had been so used.
DeleteI am well, though my horizons are limited. I find myself flying through The Golden Bowl, which I'd avoiding rereading, fearing a slog. But it is wonderful. There are wonders on every page. And I favour the New York Edition.
Thank you, this is helpful in deciding what books to order next, as they're unavailable where I am. What a joy it is to discover Anita Brookner! Currently reading Latecomers, my sixth Brookner. I think I will leave the 90s for last, although I have already read Undue Influence.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your comment. Undue Influence is atypical of 90s Brookner and in some ways a return to the style of the early 80s. You have many 90s riches to discover.
DeleteI love your page. I am a huge fan of Brookner's Latecomers
ReplyDeleteMe too. Obliqueness is the only way, perhaps, of tackling the biggest themes.
DeleteI wanted to tell you how I happy I was to come across your blog, which is full of interesting insights, reflections and information. I started reading Brookner shortly after she died, possibly prompted by her obituary in the Guardian. Since then I've read all her books at least once and would go as far as to say that she's become my favourite author. I've sometimes felt frustrated by the relative lack of material about her online, which is why I was so happy to discover your blog. So far this year, I've re-read Providence and A Private View and have started on The Next Big Thing.
ReplyDeleteI was very interested to read about your trip to Vevey. I live just outside Geneva, on the French side of the Franco-Swiss border, and I once spent an afternoon wandering around Vevey and trying to find the places mentioned in Hotel du Lac. It's a pity that the Grand Hotel du Lac no longer resembles the hotel described in the novel. I would have been very tempted to stay there for a night or two otherwise. Nyon, which Herz dreams of visiting (or re-visiting) in The Next Big Thing, is another nearby Brooknerian location. As I'm sure you know, it has a hotel called the Beau Rivage that is not difficult to find. I loitered outside it one afternoon, hoping to catch a glimpse of Herz's glamorous, self-absorbed cousin, but my hopes, like Herz's, were left unrealised. I consoled myself with the thought that disappointment is very Brooknerian emotion.
Many thanks for your amusing comments. I have thought of visiting Nyon and the Beau Rivage. But I don't think I'll be leaving Britain this summer. My stock of European memories must suffice - which is Brooknerian too, no doubt.
DeleteWill provide email address later but, having read Hotel du Lac, my first Brookner, a mere two weeks ago, I've just finished and loved your number 1, A Private View. I've at least FIVE on order from my local library.
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody know whether she admitted to influences of non-Maigret Simenons, non-Wexford Rendells and non-Ripley Highsmiths (esp. the magisterial 'Edith's Diary', in the latter case.
JVN
Thank you for your comment. She loved Simenon, Highsmith and Rendell (whom she reviewed in the Spectator in real time). I don't know about the Simenons, only of the NYRB intro. I remember she wrote of her awe at Rendell's explanation for her prolific 'ideas': 'They just come,' Rendell had said.
DeleteRendell's plots were often quite convoluted and even preposterous: but two of them made for particularly good films: Pedro Almodovar's 'Live Flesh' (I prefer it to the novel) and Claude Chabrol's version of 'The Bridesmaid' (a closer thing)
DeleteRendell's 'they just come' comment is probably fair, although I suspect she starts with perhaps 3 or 4 characters, a vague story idea, and then let's them 'take her by the hand.'
JVN
Thanks for your prompt reply; I would have loved if she would have tackled a crime novel, herself; I think she could have written a Masterpiece in the genre.
ReplyDeleteJVN
Thanks for reply. You might be interested in Brookner's 1992 novel, Fraud. It begins as a roman policier, before inevitably getting murky and Brooknerian.
DeleteOk, I'll check it out, thanks! Next up for me, though, is The Bay of Angels (also title of a marvellous Jacques Demys film starring Jeanne Moreau)which I've just got at my local library. I wonder how much different will be her first person narration!
Deletebtw, have you read Patricia Highsmith's 'Edith's Diary'? I suspect Brookner might have envied her!
JVN
The Bay of Angels is a nice example of late ascetic Brookner. I haven't read Highsmith, but I know AB was a fan.
DeleteHi, I want to be part of this cool kids’ clique. A 50 something woman from DC who logged a coule years working in Europe. Only read Hotel du Lac and think it’s the best written book over I’ve ever read. And I’ve read all the grata and I’m a writer by trade. But no one I talk to here appreciates Brookner’s genius. Does she still command a big following among Gen X in Europe.
ReplyDeleteNot so much, but not sure either; not sure I speak for Generation X!
DeleteI have read all most all ofABs books, but brief lives and next big thing are written just immaculately….incredibly rich sentences after sentences …..
ReplyDelete