The Brooknerian

This mere four-minute piece ( click here for the BBC Archive #OnThisDay feed ) should be top of the list for any Brooknerian, not least because it is, to my knowledge, the only video of the author freely available. Anita Brookner made only rare media appearances. Buried in archives are, I know, a Channel 4 interview with Hermione Lee and a programme (in the 100 Great Paintings series) Brookner made in 1980, still only an art historian, on, I think, Delacroix. We should be gladdened by this marvellous vouchsafement. There she is: stylish and a-swagger; trenchant in her commitment to the truth.

Not too skilled at literary multitasking, and having enough tasks of other kinds to complete, I don't often have more than one book 'on the go'. But sometimes very different texts will complement one another. As the year darkens I find myself at once in 1870s New York and one of those weird hothouse Italianate courts beloved of Jacobean dramatists. The Age of Innocence depicts 'a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs', while Thomas Middleton's The Maiden's Tragedy is about knowingness and frankness, but not among everyone. In both there is a gender divide, and a further polarity between women who 'know' and those who don't. Edith Wharton distinguishes the 'nice' from the 'free': the virginal May Welland is that 'terrifying product of the social system ... the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything', and for Mi...

The available photographs of Anita Brookner date almost exclusively from her fifties onwards. We have a school photo, but nothing from her later youth or early middle age. Most available photos are staged publicity shots. They follow conventions. Brookner no doubt gave as much thought to the tenor of such images as she evidently did to the character of the information she was willing to disclose in the few interviews she allowed. She doesn't often smile. A set of 'new' photos is available to view on Ebay at the moment (type 'Anita Brookner photo'). They comprise a collection of images turned out of an old newspaper archive. We see Brookner reading Spycatcher on her familiar striped sofa. We see her in a flowered dress smiling (this is from 1989, at a Lewis Percy signing). We see her clutching  Hotel du Lac at the 1984 Booker Prize dinner. And we see a rare impromptu shot of a startled Brookner in what looks like a hotel lobby. I suspect this was taken on one of he...

Little seems to happen for much of Washington Square,  Henry James's short novel of 1880. Catherine Sloper, apparently unmarriageable, but also an heiress, receives the attention of the young handsome plausible impoverished Morris Townsend. His motives are obvious if unconfirmed, or never fully confirmed. Catherine's father strongly objects to the match, and the bulk of the novel concerns the conflicts that result. The ending of the novel is often seen as its best feature, and that was my experience the first time I read it, in my youth. But it is how Catherine arrives at her understanding that should be the focus of both study and marvel. James's 'plain' heroine is really nothing of the sort. The manoeuvres her consciousness achieves are conveyed with astonishing deftness and subtlety: I think I simply missed them first time around. That she might 'accomplish something by ingenious concessions to form' is Catherine's great, quiet discovery. It is also, ...

My Dream Dinner Party,  in which a celebrity's dream guests' recorded output is spliced together, is a concept that's been knocking about BBC Radio 4 for a few years. It just about works, but has obvious limitations. I was surprised when British actress Alison Steadman 'invited' Brookner to join Charles Aznavour, James Stewart, Beryl Reid and John Lennon. The result is arch and artificial, but also a delight, insofar as it makes available passages from Brookner's media interviews from her 1980s heyday. We hear her discoursing on writing as therapy, her parents, and her style. Several points. Steadman was apparently introduced to Brookner's work after a friend gave her Strangers (2009) in the 80s. Would Brookner really have accepted a glass of wine with such enthusiasm? And mightn't she have left the party early, certainly before Lennon got out his guitar? Brookner once called the guitar a specious instrument. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000m575 ...

I was delighted to visit the Loch Lomond and the sublime landscape above Aberfoyle, having read Rob Roy during the lockdown. The weather was cool but sunny with some good cloud shadow. The heather on the hills was of a hue so heavenly as to be almost unbelievable.

Gallery-going nowadays can be a strain. Warders have been made into martinets: you must walk in this direction, wait here, move on, never linger. Some appear resentful you should wish to indulge in anything as frivolous as art. In the Palace of Holyroodhouse I asked a question about a painting of George IV's visit to Edinburgh in 1822. Who was the man kneeling before the king? The kilted attendant performed a pantomime first of not hearing - I had to repeat - then of appearing not to recognise my words as English. I said again: 'Do you know who is presenting a gift to the king?' 'I do.' 'Well, who is it?!' Eventually, sulky, and with unaccountable emphasis: 'The Duke of Hamilton.' Wilkie, Entrance of George IV at Holyroodhouse (Scott stands, at ground level, second from the left.) The palace is picturesque, laid out and furnished in decadent Carolean style. Beside the house rises the wildness of Arthur's Seat. The art, like...