I read this a long time ago, and though the details are fuzzy, I recall a marvelous evocation of atmosphere and being absorbed in the characters. ( )

An intensely female book about a writer despatched in disgrace to a hotel at end of season in Switzerland. Beautifully evoked atmosphere and emotional state. Men do not come out of the novel well. Very much in a minor key, but a gem nonetheless. ( )

As punishment, Edith Hope has been sent to Switzerland to stay in a quiet hotel near the end of the season. She is to recuperate, write another romance novel under her pseudonym Vanessa Wilde, and escape the scandal she has caused. Edith gets acquainted with her fellow guests, learning their lives up to this point, and examines the difference from her own life, a generally quiet one. Interspersed with her memory and narrative are her letters to her lover David, who appears to be the catalyst for the scandal. The hotel and its guests teach Edith a few powerful lessons about love and trust before she can return to London and normality.

This book has quite a number of quirky characters. There are the Puseys, Edith’s first friends, who are thoroughly obsessed with themselves and their money; proof if any was ever needed that apples sometimes don’t fall far from trees. There is the old deaf Comtesse, living for brief visits with her son. There is Edith’s friend Monica, sneakily avoiding meals even though she’s been sent to the hotel to fix that problem. Finally, there is the man in the gray suit, an intriguing but also alarming figure who asks Edith daring questions and seems a little too interested in her.

It’s hard not to spoil anything, since it’s less than 200 pages long and nothing was really starting until page 50 or so. Moreover, I don’t know how much I have to say about this book. It was one that quietly snuck up on me. The ending was magnificent, though. At its length, the book needed something to make it stand out. This is a quiet, quaint little story. Edith’s reason for essentially being sent away is a little old-fashioned in more or less every respect, but that doesn’t make her feelings any less relevant.

Overall, I can’t say this novel thrilled me. I didn’t know what was so extraordinary about it that merited a Booker Prize. It is a quiet story with a bit of a suckerpunch ending, which I have loved before, but it seemed a bit too quiet. While the residents are interesting, Edith’s interactions with them are not the stuff of excitement, nor revealing enough to justify much attention. I’d be interested in reading something else by this author, but I wouldn’t be too excited to do so.

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=892 ( )

I did enjoy this bitter-sweet little book in which Edith Hope moves from hope to despair and on to reality (with hope?) at an end-of-season resort hotel in Switzerland. The characters are carefully drawn, and I appreciate Edith who ultimately chooses to be who she is rather than to compromise for various comforts offered by the people who surround her. ( )

This book is a little gem of stark emotional reality. Our hero Edith has been banished to a discreet resort hotel in Switzerland for a transgression, the nature of which we don't dicover until well into the narrative. We find in due course that Edith decided at the last moment to skip her wedding. And at the Hotel du Lac, she and we are treated to families of many different stripes and hues. Monica is married but infertile; Mrs. Pusey with the money and privilege; Madame Bonneuil, the deaf matron with the ruthless daughter-in-law.

While "recuperating" Edith receives a highly cynical and selfish proposal of marriage from Mr. Neville which, in her crisis of self-confidence, she intends to accept. Edith does find, however, how unfaithful Neville will be, and comes to understand that she will be an exemplary wife only if she participates in the sham created by the hedonistic miscreants Neville invites her to join. Her refusal of him is a personal triumph.

Brookner has created a deeply felt and honest book. It starts unsettlingly obliquely, but gains clarity as we go. We see characters in sharp relief, actions which will have very clear consequences. I enjoyed this a great deal and recommend it unreservedly. ( )