What she does not have, not in 1984, is social position. He is married and has a family that he does not intend to leave. She also has, unknown to anyone, a lover, David, who is the light of her life although she sees him only once or twice a month. She has a pleasant home and a settled life which brings quiet satisfactions: sunshine, gardens, lunch with her publisher and her agent. What seems not to be acknowledged by her friend Penelope, is that Edith has a career and an independent income. She meekly agrees to a ‘holiday’ at a small hotel in Switzerland while the scandal dies down… Geoffrey was a nice man, a good catch and her ‘last chance’. Having drifted into accepting a widower’s proposal, she has jilted him at the altar. Its central question is: what kind of woman should one be? In 1984 we were exploring feminism, but this is not quite what Brookner is on about her female characters are always circumscribed by their lives and are never able to exercise much in the way of choices…Įdith Hope, in her late thirties, is a very respectable writer of romantic fiction, but she has scandalised her friends. Hotel du Lac won the 1984 Booker and it is superb. Since yesterday was International Anita Brookner Day (her 83rd birthday) I thought it would be appropriate to address her absence on this blog by posting a review of Hotel du Lac from my reading journal, from January 2004.
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