Brief Lives

Yet again there is no question as to the brilliancy of Brookner's writing, but this book was both highly readable and yet difficult to read because of it's subject matter. In Brief Lives, Brookner examines loneliness - the loneliness of a marriage bereft of emotion, and of widowhood with no remaining family, true friendships or romantic companionship without conditions.

Threading the story together is the relationship between Fay, the protagonist, and Julia, a has-been performer and former beauty who was married to Fay's husband's business partner. Theirs is a sad relationship that endures for decades, despite no real friendship or liking of each other, their main bond being a shared loneliness that neither would ever admit to.

I enjoyed show more this book as the emotion was so raw and heart tugging, yet at the same time it was a melancholy read and certainly not one to pick up when you're feeling anything less than glass half full about life. It captures so realistically the utter sadness of being full of vitality yet having no one to properly share one's life with, and the compromising and undeserving friendships and relationships that such crushing loneliness forces a person to endure and be grateful for.

4 stars - missing the light touches of Hotel du Lac but brilliantly observant. show less

I have come to the conclusion that Anita Brookner is beyond measure a gifted novelist who deserves her prizes. Here again is another example of her extraordinary gift to extract the elements that underlie and influence the life paths of her characters. "Brief Lives" is one of her best from my point of view.
Her detached and melancholic writing entrances me, because this style lets her reveal the nobility at the heart of her principal characters.

I really do love Anita Brookner’s writing, although, I find when it comes to writing a review I am somewhat at a loss to explain why. Her novels are certainly not plot driven, and people who only like plot driven narratives might well be driven mad by the quiet contemplation and introspection. I like the quite genteel lives of Brookner’s world, and find – maybe alarmingly that I understand them. I often hear and see the word depressing applied to reviews of Brookner’s novels – well I can see why – though I prefer the term melancholic. Anita Brookner does make me examine my own life – and it’s not always comfortable to do so.
In Brief Lives we meet Fay and Julia in middle and late middle age. Both are married – and show more later widowed, affluent and childless. Fay was once a singer on the radio before her marriage, Julia an actress – who has ever since retained her sense of the dramatic. The novel opens with Fay reading of Julia’s death, a woman with whom she shared a great deal of her life until more recently.
“Julia died. I read it in The Times this morning. There was quite a substantial obituary, but what immediately fixed my attention was the photograph, one of those studio portraits of the late 1930’s or early 1940’s, all huge semi-transparent eyes, flat hair, and dark lipstick. I never liked her, nor did she like me; strange, then, how we managed to keep up a sort of friendship for so long.”
In her younger days, newly married, Fay lives in quiet fear of her mother-in-law Vinnie, who’s obsessive like adoration of her son Owen is intimidating. This relationship is mirrored to an extent in the “friendship” that develops between Fay and Julia, Julia the wife of Owen’s business partner. As the years pass, Julia - eleven years Fay’s senior – becomes more reliant upon Fay - in a purely selfish way, she manipulates Fay, who, knowing that she is in thrall to Julia seems unable to leave Julia behind, even when their husbands through whom they are connected have died. Julia is a kind of frail but elegant bully. Around Julia are the lonely women, who help her live quietly in her grand flat, including a slightly pathetic young woman Maureen who Julia obviously despises, and Julia’s former dresser from her theatrical days. Julia orders them around in her imperious way, little appreciating what they do for her, while telephoning Fay to wheedle another visit. As she herself ages, Fay must contend with the deaths of her mother and then her husband, finding that she is now alone, alters Fay’s view of herself and the world around her.
“I was very lonely during the weeks that followed my mother’s death. I knew that I should never again be all the world to anyone, as it says in the song. Normally I despise women who claim never to have got over their parents’ death, or who affirm that their fathers were the most perfect men who had ever lived. I despise them, but I understand them. How can any later love compensate for the first, unless it is perfect? My simple parents had thought me unique, matchless, yet they had let me go away from them without a murmur of protest.”
Although I enjoyed this novel enormously, Brief Lives won’t be my favourite Brookner novel, I think that would be A Closed Eye, or Look at Me, however it is a typical Brookner book and so if you were to read it and enjoy it, then it would be fair to say you will like her others too. Anita Brookner’s writing is beautiful, her observations of people in their quiet genteel lives, for me quite unparalleled. Though I find there is a coldness to Brookner’s writing, which is absent in the novels of such writers as Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym, who also examine the lives of upper or middle class women. With its overriding themes of ageing and nostalgia, Brief Lives is an intelligent and poignant novel, which benefits from a slow and considered reading. show less

Amazing is the word for this book. In less than 300 pages,
Fay perfectly conveys, in first person, her complex, conflictual, inexplicable adult life. Although supposedly a novel, her story is believable as any memoir I have read; I am thinking she continues to exist somewhere. Actually she does because there are many Fays that we may know. I have not even yet mentioned her odd relationship with Julia. Reading more Anita Brookner is a must for me.

This book was so well written I like it much more for the writing than the content. The details of a woman's life and her inner thoughts presented a character study, rather than a plot driven work. I also found the protagonist's knowledge of most characters motives and feelings to be interesting, but not necessarily correct. I was pleased that the main character was able to devise a life for herself that fit her needs, but sorry that she was unable to build meaningful relationships.

Definitely one of the most boring books I have ever read.

Sometimes, I'm okay with very little action and a lot of introspection. The woman - Fay - was just far too introspective and depressing for me. And she went on and on and on about her unhappy life and how she just basically gave up and resigned herself to a life of loneliness. Not to mention she had some masochistic wish to be friends with a woman named Julia who was clearly a Bitch with a capital B.

Most of us would have dumped Julia long ago. Preferably in the Thames. (Did I mention this takes place in London?

Fay went on and on and on about her middle age and her old age and how it was just the way with women of her day and age. I believe she was born in the late 1920's. At some show more point, I wanted to slap her and tell her to "get a life".

I finished it, though. Finished the book as if performing penance. show less

Vidas breves cuenta la historia de Fay, de sus discretas alegrías e ilusiones desde que, en los años cuarenta, abandonó su modesta carrera de cantante por un matrimonio muy alejado del romanticismo que predicaban las canciones y películas de la época. Una vida en busca de amor y de verdaderos afectos en la que una extravagante mujer, la glamurosa y egocéntrica Julia, acaba convirtiéndose en una influencia sutil pero constante. Ya en la madurez, en un mundo nuevo que parece haberlas dejado atrás, los lazos que unen a Fay y Julia no son los del secreto inconfesable que se ocultan, ni los de las horas compartidas, sino más bien los del temor a la soledad.

Un magistral ejercicio de elegancia y delicadeza, lleno de ironía, sobre los show more compromisos que adquirimos con los demás y con las decisiones que tomamos a lo largo de los años. Anita Brookner, ganadora del premio Booker y una de las grandes escritoras británicas de finales del siglo xx, logró con Vidas breves una de sus mejores novelas, un delicado retrato de unas vidas marcadas por la nostalgia y las emociones reprimidas. show less