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Loading... Brief Lives (original 1990; edition 1991)by Anita Brookner (Author)
Work InformationBrief Lives by Anita Brookner (1990)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. 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 point, I wanted to slap her and tell her to "get a life". I finished it, though. Finished the book as if performing penance. 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. 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 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. no reviews | add a review
With this novel, Booker Prize-winning author Anita Brookner confirms her reputation as an unparalleled observer of social nuance and deeply felt longings. Brief Lives chronicles an unlikely friendship: that between the flamboyant, monstrously egocentric Julia and the modest, self-effacing Fay, who is at once fascinated and appalled by Julia's excesses. Thrust together by their husbands' business partnership -- and by a guilty secret -- Julia and Fay develop an intense bond that is nonetheless something less than intimacy, a relationship in which we see our own uneasy compromises, not only with other people, but with life itself. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Her detached and melancholic writing entrances me, because this style lets her reveal the nobility at the heart of her principal characters.