The Brooknerian

Further to earlier posts ( here and here ) on Brookner's writing style, I note a review from 2009 of Strangers in the Oxford Mail (see here ): Since the perfection of her grammar and use of language is a subject often commented on by reviewers ('Brookner’s writing is meticulous, impeccable and full of simple grace,'  Sunday Times ) I cannot resist pointing out that on the evidence of Strangers she does not know the meaning of either ‘dilemma’ (page 25) or ‘fulsome’ (pages 37 and 44). I would also suggest there is an otiose comma in her brief author’s note: 'All the characters in this novel are imaginary. But I do not doubt that somewhere, out there, they, or others like them, exist.' Dilemma There are five examples of the word in Strangers (none of them on p. 25 of the British edition). The reviewer's complaint appears to centre on Brookner's use of the word to mean 'difficult situation or problem' rather than 'a situation in which a choice must...

Some writers get all the approbation. There was a BBC documentary about Angela Carter last month: 'Of Wolves and Women'. It's pleasant viewing: lots of archive, talking heads, amusing dramatisation. Carter proves very digestible. What of writers whose messages are less palatable, less fashionable, less easy? Let's dismiss them, ignore them, misrepresent them. Enter Jeanette Winterson with her Brian May hairdo. Nights at the Circus (1984), we are told, received glowing reviews but was deliberately overlooked for the Booker Prize. 'What won', says Winterson sourly, 'was Hotel du Lac , which was Anita Brookner, which is an insipid novel by any standards.' Here we cut to a particularly prim scene from the Hotel du Lac TV film. Winterson goes on: 'It was typical of the way that the establishment at the time rewarded women who are compliant.' Such lazy sneering is, for my money, typical of the way the critical establishment often categorises ...

My thing with Brookner goes back exactly 25 years ago when Hotel du Lac won the Booker prize. To an aspiring literary critic, this frail, thin book about a frail, thin heroine coming to terms with loveless solitude at a Swiss hotel seemed the epitome of the bloodless, sexless, plotless English novel that had led us to study American literature at college.  Subsequently, one of the subjects for my debut appearance on the Radio 3 chatshow Critics' Forum turned out to be the latest Brookner, in which another west London spinster didn't quite get it together with a semi-comatose widower. What passed for a plot twist was the heroine experiencing a severe migraine. I have a memory of a moment when the central character was forced to return early from a stroll because the weight of the spectacle frames on her nose had become unbearable. Mark Lawson, Guardian , 2009 Mark Lawson's review of Brookner's 2009 novel Strangers isn't the only example of a critic recanti...

He knew that he was in danger of losing his head, may already have lost it, but submitted to the experience, even welcomed it. The arrival of Ted Bishop, accompanied by his infant grandson, roused him from what may have been a brief trance.  There may even have been jealousy behind the iron closeness that united Fanny and her mother; neither was allowed to break their primitive agreement. Anita Brookner,  The Next Big Thing , chapters 10, 11, 17 Now reread those sentences. Is there a problem? I'm not so sure. Plainly they're in the past tense. And 'may' is certainly the present tense modal of which 'might' is the past tense version. Yes, yes. But should Brookner really therefore have written 'might' instead of 'may'? Many writers would, without misgivings, have written those sentences. The problem, I think, is with the additional meanings or functions of 'might', i.e. its use not just as the past tense of 'may...

Why do readers keep on going back for more? Because the compensation for self-control, as Freud believed, is to think yourself more civilised ... Readers are flattered into thinking themselves rather clever and a bit superior: if they can't be happy and successful, they can at least be sensitive .  Alison Light, review of A Family Romance , New Statesman (?), 9 July 1993 Saddest of all, though, is what this sort of writing tells us about our culture ... Brookner shows that we think something drained of life must be full of art.  Rhoda Koenig, review of Altered States, unknown source  This is the dead end of English literature, a cul-de-sac where mannered gestures stand in for creativity, and a careful aura of literariness replaces literature.  Natasha Walter, review of Altered States , Guardian , 14 June 1996  The only sign of an awareness of contemporary language in The Next Big Thing is an unconscious one: for all her fastidiousness she succu...