Hotel Du Lac
(Anita Brookner)
Hotel du Lac won the Booker Prize in the mid 80s. Published in 1984, it tells of Edith Hope, a spinster writer of romances, just pushing 40, who is sent by her friends for a week in October at a small family-run hotel in Switzerland. Through Edith''s eyes we meet the other hotel guests and staff. Through her reminiscences we learn of her life and the events leading up to her "forced" vacation. Through her letters to David, her lover, we learn of her affair with a married man.
Very little actually happens in the novel. One might describe it as an analysis of the nuance. A touch here, a glance there, these are Brookner''s building blocks. When a hotel guest, Mr. Neville, proposes marriage to her in the next to last chapter, all of the various streams of thought come together in Edith''s decision-making process. This book must be read with care to enjoy it fully. The characters are as real as any people we know. The events, visible or just hinted, fit Edith''s depictions of the characters like a glove. The fascination is how the events fit Edith''s suspicions more than what she, or the readers, actually see. While everything makes sense in the end, I did not feel that my intelligence was being insulted, nor did I feel myself to be smarter than the author.
A good read and worthy prize winner.
Resumos Relacionados
- The Women Characters In Anita Brookner's Novels With Special Reference To Hotel Du Lac
- The Women Characters In Anita Brookner's Novels With Special Reference To Hotel Du Lac
- The Inheritance
- Moving On
- Shining
|
|
