Christopher Hampton's film of Brookner's 1984 Booker-winning novel, Hotel du Lac, was broadcast on BBC2 on Sunday 2 March 1986 at 10.05 p.m. Brookner would be watching it 'at home, with my feet up, just like anyone else'. The interview she gave the Radio Times on the occasion of the broadcast is light and airy, as befits the medium. But Brookner is Brookner, and darkness glimmers.
'People like the Puseys always win ... You can't keep them at bay. You can only repossess yourself from time to time by examining things really clearly.'
'I like writing, but it's a nerve-wracking, dangerous business.'
'Writers are like stateless persons. They can't easily be absorbed.'
'I don't aspire to anything. I'm non-aligned, I'll settle for being marginal.'
