Anita Brookner won the Booker Prize in 1984 for Hotel du Lac. The full ceremony is here:
Some images from the evening:
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| Iconic press photo, showing Brookner's surprise |
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Brookner's shock is as the prize is announced. She was later interviewed on television, by Melvyn Bragg or Selina Scott. In pure Brooknerese, she said winning had left her 'absolutely poleaxed'.
Brookner was in no way the favourite to win the Booker-McConnell Prize in October, 1984. It was a strong year, with many more 'Booker-friendly' novels in the running. There was some carping afterwards. Anthony Burgess, speaking on a literary talk show, made a comment about 'menstrual cramps in Swiss hotels'.
Brookner's shock is as the prize is announced. She was later interviewed on television, by Melvyn Bragg or Selina Scott. In pure Brooknerese, she said winning had left her 'absolutely poleaxed'.
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* 'I am apostolic about the novels of Edith Templeton, a Czech who writes in impeccable English: they are extremely restrained and tell strong stories about life in old-style central Europe, with recognizable passions and follies. Lovely, lovely novels.' Brookner, Haffenden interview
** 'I cannot praise too highly this novel's poise, perceptiveness and purity of style.' Brookner, Sunday Times
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 Cobb announced that the prize had gone to her Hotel du Lac.
Afterwards, in the crypt bar, the Labour MP Ted Rowlands, one of the judges, told me that they had been very divided in their final session, and that Polly Devlin had carried the day for Brookner with an impassioned speech in which she quoted from my complimentary review** of Brookner’s previous novel, printed on the back side of Hotel du Lac.
David Lodge, Diary, New Statesman, 6 November 1998
** 'I cannot praise too highly this novel's poise, perceptiveness and purity of style.' Brookner, Sunday Times
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A fascinating piece of Brookneriana: Anita Brookner being interviewed on the radio at the Booker Prize reception. Brookner gives responses that are familiar from several of her interviews. The male interviewer's tone is typical of the era: condescending, paternalistic. But it is Brookner's tone that is of interest. She is amused, even whimsical. This is probably euphoria; she's just won a major prize. But one wonders whether, speaking to the likes of John Haffenden or Shusha Guppy, her tone wasn't similarly humorous.
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I've long enjoyed the novels and also the literary criticism of David Lodge. Late in his career, with perhaps no more novels to come, Lodge, like his hero Henry James, turned to autobiography, and Writer's Luck: a memoir 1976-1991 (above) was the second volume.
It reads a little like Lodge's great campus novels of that era, but with one major exception. Lodge declares himself a kind of war reporter in the sexual revolution that coincided with his adulthood, rather than a participant - whereas his characters were always enthusiastically and energetically involved. This makes the memoir a little pedestrian at times, even disappointing. Lives are often like that.
Lodge's 'global campus' novel Small World was shortlisted for the 1984 Booker Prize, along with works by J. G. Ballard, Julian Barnes, Anita Desai, Penelope Lively and Anita Brookner. Lodge was of the popular opinion that Ballard's Empire of the Sun was the runaway favourite. The bookies gave Ballard 6-4, but Lodge's novel was second at 3-1.
He describes the glittering but stressful Booker banquet at the Guildhall, with its magnificent chandeliers, old panelling and white napery, the circular tables, the roaming camera teams. The dinner ended, the speeches began, and the tension rose still further. The chairman of the judges that year was the Oxford historian Professor Richard Cobb. 'The 1984 Booker McConnell Prize for fiction goes to...' - and Cobb paused dramatically. All eyes were on Ballard's table, but the TV crews had been tipped off as to the true winner, and thus were able to catch the look of shocked amazement on 6-1 outsider Anita Brookner's face as her name was announced.
Friends commiserated with Lodge afterwards. Hotel du Lac, they felt, was a slighter book than his, but Lodge hadn't read it. But he had enjoyed Brookner's previous novel Look at Me, and indeed had reviewed it for the Sunday Times. Later in the evening, in the bar, one of the judges confided to Lodge some details of the judges' discussions. Apparently another of the judges, the writer and journalist Polly Devlin, had swung the argument in favour of Anita Brookner by reading out words of praise for Look at Me, taken from the back cover of Hotel du Lac. The words of praise were from none other than David Lodge's Sunday Times review. The irony of this wasn't lost on Lodge.
Writing about the event thirty years later in Writer's Luck, the matter is plainly still on David Lodge's mind. He seeks out his Look at Me review:
I've long enjoyed the novels and also the literary criticism of David Lodge. Late in his career, with perhaps no more novels to come, Lodge, like his hero Henry James, turned to autobiography, and Writer's Luck: a memoir 1976-1991 (above) was the second volume.
It reads a little like Lodge's great campus novels of that era, but with one major exception. Lodge declares himself a kind of war reporter in the sexual revolution that coincided with his adulthood, rather than a participant - whereas his characters were always enthusiastically and energetically involved. This makes the memoir a little pedestrian at times, even disappointing. Lives are often like that.
Lodge's 'global campus' novel Small World was shortlisted for the 1984 Booker Prize, along with works by J. G. Ballard, Julian Barnes, Anita Desai, Penelope Lively and Anita Brookner. Lodge was of the popular opinion that Ballard's Empire of the Sun was the runaway favourite. The bookies gave Ballard 6-4, but Lodge's novel was second at 3-1.
He describes the glittering but stressful Booker banquet at the Guildhall, with its magnificent chandeliers, old panelling and white napery, the circular tables, the roaming camera teams. The dinner ended, the speeches began, and the tension rose still further. The chairman of the judges that year was the Oxford historian Professor Richard Cobb. 'The 1984 Booker McConnell Prize for fiction goes to...' - and Cobb paused dramatically. All eyes were on Ballard's table, but the TV crews had been tipped off as to the true winner, and thus were able to catch the look of shocked amazement on 6-1 outsider Anita Brookner's face as her name was announced.
Friends commiserated with Lodge afterwards. Hotel du Lac, they felt, was a slighter book than his, but Lodge hadn't read it. But he had enjoyed Brookner's previous novel Look at Me, and indeed had reviewed it for the Sunday Times. Later in the evening, in the bar, one of the judges confided to Lodge some details of the judges' discussions. Apparently another of the judges, the writer and journalist Polly Devlin, had swung the argument in favour of Anita Brookner by reading out words of praise for Look at Me, taken from the back cover of Hotel du Lac. The words of praise were from none other than David Lodge's Sunday Times review. The irony of this wasn't lost on Lodge.
Writing about the event thirty years later in Writer's Luck, the matter is plainly still on David Lodge's mind. He seeks out his Look at Me review:
Like a tear trembling in an eyelid, it continually threatens to spill over into existentialist metafiction ... but manages to stay - just - within the bounds of the English novel of sentiment and manners ... If she should ever transgress those bounds the results would be interesting. Meanwhile I cannot praise too highly this novel's poise, perceptiveness and purity of style.Lodge admits he didn't keep up with Anita Brookner's 'formidable rate of production' over the years; nevertheless, he doesn't think she ever did transgress 'the limits of the well-made English novel of manners' - and certainly not in Hotel du Lac, which, when he read it, he liked, though he thought it lacked the 'dangerous edge' of its predecessor.
She was however, in her own line, a very skilful artist, and in retrospect by no means an unworthy winner of the Booker.
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