A Start in Life

This was Brookner's first novel. This is my second Brookner novel. How it took me this long to get to her is a question for the ages. Originally, I was going to read her books on my Kindle because the library has almost all of them on Overdrive but it's become apparent to me that I must own them all. I want to see them lined up on my shelf like I have my Barbara Pym books lined up. Not that they're all that similar. Well, maybe in a quirky, understated, Pymian sort of way. I find myself sitting with a satisfied sigh when I get to the end of each of their novels as I replay it through my mind.

This one is the story of 40 year old Ruth Weiss, a Balzac scholar who is thinking back on her life. The title would've been better if it had been show more A Restart in Life because that's what she had to do. After a fairly miserable childhood with parents who were nuts to say the least--- father a rare book store owner, mother a has been stage actress---Ruth goes to Paris to pursue who doctorate. She leaves her mother who rarely gets out of bed even though there is not one thing wrong with her, and her father who is dallying with another woman, and Mrs. Cutler, the housekeeper who keeps the household from falling into complete and total disarray. Just as she gets settled her own place and interests and possible lover she is forced to return home.

Brookner, like Pym, is a master of the understated, the ironic, the comic and unlike Pym, the tragic. But her wordplay is absolutely delicious:

"Then Richard would wing home to his parish and stay up for two whole nights answering the telephone to teenage dropouts, battered wives, recidivists, and alcoholics. There seemed to be no end to the amount of bad news he could absorb." (page 38)

"He's liable for the Tribunal if he don't" said Miss Howe inaccurately; she sometimes regretted that she had so little to complain about."(Page 40)

The book is littered (in a good way) with gems like these. It matters little to me if not much happens. That's not the point here. It's the incredible characters and the language. The wonderful language, the irony, the humor, the insight. Just delightful.

This book won't be for everyone but for me it was sublime and I'll be moving on to another Brookner next month. I'm reading her books in order of publication and she wrote twice as many as Pym so it'll take me twice as long as it did 2013 when I read the Pym books. show less

This was Anita Brookner's first novel, and her first line: "Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature." demonstrates that what made her special was there from the start. The rest of this short novel explores how the Dr Ruth Weiss of the title reached this point, and is a very entertaining if slightly sad comedy of manners. I have not read most of Brookner's French literary reference points (her heroine is an expert on Balzac) and I suspect there is more going on that I picked up.

The young Ruth is mostly brought up by her grandparents, while her actress mother pursues her career and her father George runs a bookshop. After the grandmother dies, the mother hires a housekeeper and does less and less, becoming show more more or less confined to her room. Ruth tries to escape their limited expectations of her but largely fails. show less

(1990s)

I did want to re-read a Brookner anyway, but then Heaven-Ali came up with the idea of Brookner in July to celebrate the author’s birthday, so this forms part of that challenge, too. This one has a superb opening sentence: “Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature”. We’re in classic (early) Brookner-land here with a red-haired, solitary daughter with her slightly raffish mother and unreliable family in general, odd retainer and unsatisfactory lover, with London and Paris playing starring roles and minute observation of the disconnect between the central characters and modern life.

It’s quite Pym-like in ways, although much more melancholy than even the saddest Pym – a farcical attempt at show more cooking a meal for a lover is tragic here, rather than comic – but a world in which the reader can immerse themselves and as good a reading experience now as when I was much younger and reading Brookner for the first time. show less

This is Brookner's first book, and my first Brookner. I have to agree with another reviewer who says there is a disconnect between the book's earlier sections and the latter bits. This disconnect is interesting, in some ways, even if the effect on the whole is to make the novel feel disjointed and bumpy. It's the difference between young Ruth-with-plans; her ambitions or her hopes for herself when her life was still her own, vs. the Ruth of circumstance, who has learned that even when your life is in your own hands you may find yourself having to bend it to another's will, not merely out of external impositions, but also out of a sense of responsibility and love (in this case, for one's aging parents). The first two-thirds does have show more that crisp Pymsian irony, so deliciously wry and funny, while the latter part of the book enters a shadowy area and becomes vague. I found this latter 1/3 interesting because Brookner rushes through it; almost as if it might have been too much to dwell on in detail. So much has been made about Brookner's bleak, sad female protagonists coming to terms with diminished lives that I'm curious to see how this aspect - an aspect that seems to have been minimised or evaded, in a certain psychological sense, in this book - develops in her later works. show less

I feel the back of this book is a bit misleading, suggesting the protagonist has a chance for a new start in life, like there might be a happy ending. But I've read Anita Brookner before so was not fooled by that. This is a perfectly observed small scale novel about Ruth Weiss and her awful family. She's trapped by life and every time she seems about to break free a little it is unsuccessful.

I always like Brookner's books, which are quiet, reflective, and always a little sad or melancholy, but I never find them particularly memorable either. So I enjoy the act of reading these, but I doubt I'll ever find one that is a "favorite".

This one is about Ruth Weiss, a Balzac scholar, as she reflects back on her "coming of age". Most of her struggles are gaining confidence and escaping her childlike parents who repeatedly need her care and interfere with her independence.

I liked this, as always, but her books won't be for everyone.

Ruth Weiss is thwarted in achieving the happiness in life that she imagined was her due. The tug of familial responsibilities, loyalties and a melancholic disposition defeat her ideas of personal freedom. Ruth has fortitude nevertheless; her life as scholar and writer is an honourable one.
Anita Brookner hit the ground running with this her first novel. All her close insight of her characters' motivations and weaknesses is evident in her understated style.