In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question “Why love?” It tells the story of Edith Hope, who writes romance novels under a psudonym. When her life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, however, Edith flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac … promises to resore her to her senses.
But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love’s casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive.
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There was some controversy surrounding this novel’s choice as 1984’s Booker winner. But I adore it. It’s so much more than a tale of love’s trials. This is another story I first encountered in a television dramatisation, this from 1986 and starring Anna Massey. It doesn’t have any obvious appeal to a working-class teenage boy, yet it utterly …
Sometimes a rather sad life can be just what you need to motivate one to count ones blessings. The character studies in this novel create an introspective mood for both protagonist and reader.
I loved this quiet English novel. The writing style reminds me a lot of one of my favorite English authors, Barbara Pym, although Brookner is a little more edgy. Beautifully written and quietly witty with well-drawn characters.
Another prize-winning novel in a very different genre. The protagonist, Edith Hope is in disgrace – banished by friends and family to quiet opulence in an hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva. What has Edith done to deserve this treatment ? The story unfolds as you read on.
Quite slow.
Brookner isn’t read much anymore….but she is wonderful to rediscover. This book is leisurely at first, an old style English novel, but stick with it, because as the story unfolds, her insights into women’s lives are powerful and riveting.
It felt like going back in time…same old story, looking for love in all the wrong places and not finding it! I did enjoy the characters and descriptions of the hotel in Switzerland. They were entertaining.
Felt like a very old style of writing but, thankfully a short read
I enjoyed this book but it certainly isn’t for everyone and isn’t a fluff book or a cozy book.
A remarkable smart and suavely author.
In the first few chapters I was going to quit reading the book, all I wanted to do was to shake Edith and tell her to grow a backbone. Her idea of being rebellious was to have a clandestine affair with a married man, everyone knows how well that works out. She runs away before becoming the wife of a recently motherless mouse of a man who she …
This novel by Anita Brookner won the Mann Booker award in U. K. for best literary fiction. A mother and daughter share an experience at scenic resort hotel in Alp mountains.
Good writing with unusual characters.
I was rather bored with the whole story. The characters were boring, the plot was not real developed – imo, and I skipped over pages to get through with it.
I enjoyed reading this well written novel which beautifully describes the plight of women in their sometimes agonizing search for self. The book held my attention and raised questions relevant even in today’s world.
It felt like a much needed pause from life and set in a time and place paced for reflection. The other residents provided the entertainment; the narrative carried the reader along on reflection. A quiet, unpredictable end.