Look at Me

A thoroughly unsettling book. Brookner plays with the narrative voice in the novel: how much can we trust Fanny's perceptions? Fanny is a writer who uses the people in her life as fuel for her work. When her relationship with a group goes wrong, she decides to suppress her feelings so that she can continue to write about her friends as a kind of revenge--or is it out of desperation? There is much astute analysis of events and of her frame of mind, but also of her writing process that leads the reader to doubt all that is presented as 'truth'. Even the timeframe is hard to pin down: the fashions sound early 60s, as does the dialogue; the length of time from the bombing during the War pushes the time to maybe the 70s, and then there is a microwave used to heat up dinner.... The effect is disturbing and compelling. ( )

Anita Brookner teases and puzzles me. Her character Frances Hilton's thought and feelings written in the first person seem almost impossible to separate from what one would imagine were Brookner's own. That being said, the map that Brookner lays out for Frances follows paths that eventually seem to lead her back to her starting point. Since her life felt unfulfilled and she lives it as a self-described observer, her journey's end leaves the reader with the sadness and dissatisfaction of a life half-lived. It's also difficult to ascertain how Brookner feels about Frances's inability to make changes that might lead to a more fulfilling life. In spite of the book's total focus on Frances's inner life I was always fascinated and never bored by it and I attribute that to Brookner's skills. ( )

This book will make you want to kill yourself. ( )

This is a rather depressing novel about a young woman so attracted to what she perceives as the "perfect couple" that she lets them take over her life for the better part of a year. Only when she begins to bore them does she realize just how dependent she has become on them for an entire social life that she never had before. Even after she is cut from the herd she still yearns for their approval and their company.

Although the novel is a short one, I found it a bit difficult to get through it. Perhaps it was the subject matter that put me off, perhaps the writing itself. Brookner’s novel should be read as a warning to us all that we should be very careful for what we wish…a desire for the company of those too shallow and egotistical to deserve it will cause more grief than good for the dreamer who actually believes that such a friendship will be a long lasting one. Lesson learned. ( )