Anita Brookner crafted novels that delve deeply into the complexities of human relationships and the inner lives of her characters. Her work often explores themes of loneliness, disillusionment, and the search for meaning. Brookner's distinctive literary style is characterized by its keen observation and profound understanding of the human psyche. Readers are invited into intimate explorations of personal struggle and quiet resilience.
Hotel du Lac is a classic Booker Prize-winning novel by Anita Brookner. It follows Edith Hope, a romantic novelist, as she navigates life at the Hotel du Lac after being exiled from home. Amidst the elite, she encounters Mr. Neville, reigniting her hopes for love and escape from spinsterhood. The novel is praised for its humor, wit, and emotional depth.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Anna Durrant's acquaintances realize that Anna has gone missing. Normally so reliable, so helpful, she has neglected what duties remain to her after the death of her mother and taken flight. Lawrence Halliday, the family doctor, trapped in a trying marriage to the predatory Vickie, is the first to notice Anna's disappearance. Mrs Marsh, a critical friend of Anna's mother, had hoped that her arrogant son Nick might take an interest in Anna, but he is seeking greater sophistication and worldliness. And as for Anna herself, she has not so much disappeared as ceased to exist as the woman they all thought they knew.
Anita Brookner's first novel, available as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.' Ruth Weiss, an academic, is beautiful, intelligent and lonely. Studying the heroines of Balzac in order to discover where her own childhood and adult life has gone awry, she seeks not salvation but enlightenment. Yet in revisiting her London upbringing, her friendships and doomed Parisian love affairs, she wonders if perhaps there might not be a chance for a new start in life . . .
Paul Sturgis is a retired bank manager who lives alone. He walks alone and dines alone, seeking out and taking pleasure in small exchanges with strangers. He longs for companionship. And then two women enter his life and the complexities of companionship are revealed to him
“For some reason, the very negative thoughts which she had during that interview with the rich-stockbroker woman in Kensington did not remain with her… She forgot that she despised the woman for not looking after her own children, and she forgot how much she envied and hated her for being rich enough to pay someone else to shovel her baby’s shit.”
After twenty years of marriage Blanche Vernon is alone; abandoned by her husband Bertie for a childishly demanding computer expert named Mousie. While Blanche finds this turn of events baffling, she feels that Bertie must have left her because of her overly sensible demeanor. Yet many of their mutual friends disagree. In fact, Blanche has come to be regarded as undeniably eccentric--making elliptical remarks that no one knows how to read, and chatting at great length about characters in fiction. She resolutely fills her unwanted hours with activities, maintaining her excellent appearance, drinking increasingly more wine, and, in an attempt to turn her energy to good works, becoming severely enmeshed in the life of a disordered young family.
Elizabeth and Betsy are old school friends. Born in 1948 and unready for the sixties, they had high hopes of the lives they would lead, even though their circumstances were so different. When they meet again in their thirties, Elizabeth, married to the safe, older Digby is relieving the boredom of a cosy but childless marriage with an affair.
Combining two volumes of Wharton's short stories in a brand new edition, this outstanding selection is the most comprehensive available. Although Edith Wharton is best known for her novels The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, this extensive collection of her short fiction shows her to be a master of all its varieties. Wharton's stories ... owe their enduring power to portray the emotional consequences of life in a rarefied world."—The New York TimesThe Pelican --The Other Two --The Mission of Jane --The Reckoning --The Last Asset --The Letters --Autres Temps ... --The Long Run --After Holbein --Atrophy --Pomegranate Seed --Her Son --Charm Incorporated --All Souls' --The Lamp of Psyche --A Journey --The Line of Least Resistance --The Moving Finger --Expiation --Les Metteurs en Scene --Full Circle --The Daunt Diana --Afterward --The Bolted Door --The Temperate Zone --Diagnosis --The Day of the Funeral --Confession --
"Herz is seventy-three and facing the difficult question: what is he going to do with the rest of his life? How is it all going to end?" "He could propose marriage to an old friend he hasn't seen for thirty years; he could travel; he could make a trip to Paris to see a favourite painting; he could sell his flat, move, start afresh. He must do something with the time left - but what?"--Jacket
Moving between Nice and London, The Bay of Angels, Anita Brookner's 20th novel, makes the point that not everyone needs conventional relationships to be happy. It relates the story of Zoe, whose life changes when her widowed mother marries a wealthy older man and moves to Nice.
