In detailed inner dialogues, Julius Herz examines memories of his 73 years and gains insights into how he ended up alone at the end of an unfulfilled life. He has spent his life observing the rules and attempting always to do what was expected of him from the people in his life. His loneliness is palpable as he now attempts to connect with people and somehow alleviate his anxieties about how to spend the rest of his life. The prose is exquisite in this typical Brookner novel. ( )

The back page promised a 'clever and funny' novel. Anita Brookner is certainly a very clever writer and her writing is excellent and well crafted. However, the humour passed me by and I found this a very sad novel.
She does portray the realities of old age accurately. Herz is 73 years of age in the novel, although he looks back over his life to give us a flavour. This looking back concentrates on certain key points, as is often the way of older people and this has the effect of concertinaing his 73 years and I kept feeling there were years missing. He told us a little of his childhood and his cousin Fanny in German. We also hear something of the first years in England, adjusting to life in a new country after escaping Germany and working in the record shop with his Father and how difficult that was. He would send his father for a nap n the afternoon for some respite. At some point, and I am not clear on the chronology, Herz marries Josie but this lasts a short time due to his family circumstances. However, they remain friends and meet up every few months. Herz also met up with Fanny in Switzerland one more time (in his 40s?): again the chronology was vague but this was after the death of his parents and the ending of his marriage to Josie. There is then nothing of note for him to remember at all until he receives a bequest and is able to retire from the record shop in his 60s. And so we meet a lonely man, who has dinner with his solicitor and ex-wife occasionally, goes out to buy the newspaper every morning and is on nodding acquaintance with local shopkeepers. Anita Brookner tells how it is in a brutally honest way and the lesson to be learnt is to make sure you have some friends in your old age. Instead, Herz lives his life introspectively and makes rash decisions, flitting from one thing to another and looking for the next big thing that will make his life more exciting. The ending was way too obvious and disappointing for me and I found it all very sad, if accurate. ( )

This is not going to reassure you about your later years, but it may help give some of us some sort of understanding. A beautiful study of a man who realizes that most of his life has slipped past him and he doesn’t know what to do with the rest of it.

This is not an action book; it’s very wordy, nothing much happens. The references to Henry James on the back cover let you know what you’re in for. ( )

The best book Anita Brookner has ever written.The plot as well as the style reminds us of Proust. We plunge into the inner world of the hero with curiosity and affection, if I may say so. Loneliness is many people's lot nowadays and it's high time writers wrote about it. ( )

Making Things Better aka The Next Big Thing by Anita Brookner was long-listed for the Booker Prize in 2002. (I did originally say short-listed - apologies - call it a Freudian slip and wishful thinking on Brookner's behalf).

I was a bit excited about reading it as this is the first Anita Brookner I've read that features a male in the lead role, so to speak.

Julius Herz is retired and reflecting on his life to date. It could be argued that he is in his dotage. He is ailing physically and mourning the lack of someone to look after him in his old age.

Julius did marry once - to a cheerful, practical sort of woman - Josie - but cramped living conditions, which included his demanding and morose parents, spelled the death-knell for any hope of proper intimacy.

Brookner's novels may be slim but they're never an easy read. She seems to delight in tackling the difficult subjects like old age and loneliness that other writers might choose to give a wide berth.

Not our Ms Brookner. She plunges in where angels fear to tread and paints a sobering picture of something that most of us will face - decline and decay - and possibly regret. As my father regularly intones in lines attributed to Bette Davis I think - "Old age isn't for sissies."

Like many of Brookner's characters, Julius was an obedient offspring. Not necessarily the favoured son by any stretch of the imagination...but the one that tidied up and tried to make things better. When his brother Freddy, a promising concert violinist starts to lose the plot, Julius is the only one who visits him in the Sanitorium and witnesses his decline.

Late in life, Julius is given a chance at freedom. His parents having passed on, a distant acquaintance, who helped the family re-settle in London from war-torn Europe, bequeaths a significant proportion of his estate to Julius which frees him from the necessity to work or worry about a roof over his head.

But is it too late? "He was not trained for freedom, that was the problem, had not been brought up for it." Poor Julius feels so overcome with the challenge of freedom he suffers "a feeling of unreality, so enveloping as to constitute a genuine malaise." A quite amusing dialogue ensues during an appointment with his doctor where Julius earnestly asks if he could be suffering a similar experience to Freud's on the Acropolis. The Doctor ignores the question of existentialism and pursues a comfortable line of enquiry - blood pressure.

Friends and acquaintances suggest that what Julius needs is a holiday. In his obliging manner, he attempts to re-visit the joys of his youth, when he sampled the delights of brief getaways in Paris with obliging young women. It doesn't take long to get to Paris from Waterloo...but the people have changed and of course Julius has too. He feels his age and decides to return home earlier than planned. Before he leaves, he pops into Saint Sulpice to check out Delacroix's painting. I'll leave you to read the book and find out the epiphany or new reading that Julius takes away with him from the viewing.

I always feel a wee bit more edu-muckated after I've read Brookner. I learn new words - this book brought me meretricious, which I always forget means "befitting a harlot - or showily attractive" - a most useful word - must use it more often. Then of course there is fiacre - which you might think is something to do with a fiasco - but no, it is a French four-wheeled cab - never enough cabs I say. Finally inanition.- emptiness esp of nourishment i.e. how I felt earlier this week after a particularly nasty tummy bug.

In conclusion I have to say that on the whole I found The Next Big Thing a bit of struggle - rather like Jacob wrestling with the Angel. There is a very telling line early on when Julius forms a friendship with a younger man - a co-beneficiary of the estate bequeathed to them. They dine together on a regular basis "Herz had little experience of dealing with younger people but understood instinctively that one kept out of their lives as much as possible but was curious and indulgent towards them....It was a matter of discretion not to talk about oneself. To do so would be to shock Simmonds with the prospect of what awaited him."

I guess I'm not shocked. More gloomily depressed. One doesn't want to shoot the messenger of course, but it has to be said that Brookner fair puts you off old age, so she does. ( )