Hotel du Lac

Whenever I read a certain kind of woman's novel where the protagonist is either middle-aged, tired and/or disgraced, I tend to worry about, what I call, "The Awakening" effect where a woman may find, when there are no other options available to her, that there's only one way out of a bad situation.
Hotel Du Lac, written nearly 100 years after Chopin's "The Awakening" and set in the 1980's proves to be a document as to how far women have come.
Romance writer, Edith Hope, has been advised by her friends to get out of town, regroup and think about the dreadful thing she's done. Exile at Hotel Du Lac at first repulses Edith and also perhaps the reader. Edith describes everything in her room the color of cooked veal, a misty shroud show more encompasses the lake and surrounding mountains. Edith and the reader are trapped! Although the story unfolds at a snails pace and some may even toss it aside one should look at Edith's story more as a character study of those also staying at the hotel. The other women at Du Lac are also in some type of exile and in them Edith reflects on who she is and who she might become if she chooses to remain on the path she's been traveling. She may find it necessary to fall into line with old school thought or she may discover she has options.
Hotel Du Lac in September and Edith, both dignified, solid and out of season are empowering and well worth a quick read. show less

A magnificent book. This won the 1984 Booker Prize.

Playing on feminist themes and Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, Edith Hope goes to Switzerland not to heal her body, but to hide away awhile after damaging her reputation. She goes in the offseason. The summer tourists have left, the clouds more often obscure the sun, leaving everything gray and hazy. The hotel on the lake is half empty, with a smaller underused staff. There are guests. They tend toward wealth and loneliness, widows and unmarried women, with a few men from a nearby conference. But what does Hope care. She's an author, a writer of "romantic fiction", who just needs to pass the time and get some writing done. She has landed in a cozy isolation. So, of course, she gets show more involved with the other guests.

When asked to sex up her books for the liberated women readers, Edith tells her editor that's not what they want. "...they prefer the old myths, when it comes to the crunch. They want to believe that they are going to be discovered, looking their best, behind closed doors, just when they thought all was lost, by a man who has battled across continents, abandoning whatever he may have had in his in-tray, to reclaim them."

Edith makes friends with a widow and her grown unmarried daughter, and with another gorgeous bird-like woman, alone with her dog, who gossips about the widow. She develops a connection with a deaf elderly woman, left here alone by her son. And she meets a man in gray who takes an interest in her. He may have battled across continents. Edith will get involved in all the hotel's vanity, listening, learning about rivalries and caressed personal histories. Meanwhile she writes long letters to her married lover. Her book progress is lingering.

She does think a lot about writing. In one fun line she thinks, "The sensation of being entertained by words was one she encountered all too rarely. People expect writers to entertain _them_, she reflected. They consider that writers should be gratified simply by performing their task to the audience's satisfaction. Like sycophants at court in the Middle Ages, dwarves, jongleurs. And what about _us_? Nobody thinks about entertaining _us_.”

There a many different themes built in this book, on love, stories, social performance, meaning, selfishness and happiness. It's all heightened by the luxurious atmosphere, forcing the language to rise, and made playful by Edith's wry perspectives and interactions, and Brookner's. Brookner is, I think, I highly underappreciated author. She can manage all this stuff - the themes, humor, language and story tension - and the combination of it all makes this book really shine. It's something of a classic, by far Brookner's most famous book, and it deserves that attention.

I've read one other Brookner, A Closed Eye, which is an excellent novel doing many complicated things, and bringing in the readers emotions and thinking, and mixing these together. This book sits on a higher level because it combines these skills with the heightened language and playfulness suitable to the book's atmosphere. It makes this book far more vibrant.

Recommended to everyone, especially those looking for underappreciated authoresses.

2025
https://www.librarything.com/topic/372264#8972217 show less

Romance novelist Edith Hope has escaped from her life at a quiet Swiss hotel at the end of its season. Her life in London consists chiefly of making others happy – her publisher by writing not-quite-bestseller romances, and her friends by making up numbers at dinner parties and saying what’s expected of her. She is more isolated than ever in her retreat, and to occupy her mind she analyzes her fellow guests almost as if they are characters in one of her books. The only eligible male guest attaches himself to her and he seems to offer a permanent escape from the difficulties she left behind.

This novel appears to be a response to Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women. Brookner uses this phrase twice in the novel, and this seems deliberate. show more Pym’s Mildred Lathbury ends her loneliness through marriage to an anthropologist, to whom she can be useful. Brookner’s Edith Hope makes a different choice, rejecting marriage to a man she doesn’t love and who doesn’t love her to continue as mistress to a man she loves who will never leave his wife for her. She has realized just in time that marriage to such a man will not end her loneliness. It would be interesting to pair these novels in a reading group and see where the discussion goes. show less

I'd always wanted to read Hotel Du Lac, and have finally managed to get around to it. Why? Well there's something about old, slightly stuffy, family owned European hotels that appeals to me. Also, the book has been so frequently blurbed in the end pages of other books I've read, that I thought I really should read it. Finally, the title reminds me of The White Hotel by D.M Thomas (NOTE: This book bears absolutely no resemblance to The White Hotel. It would be hard to think of two more dissimilar books).

My first thoughts were how much writing styles have changed in the last 35 years. This was published in 1984, won the Booker that year, and even though a review of the short list reveals that 1984 was hardly a vintage year, compared to show more other novels on the list, such as Flaubert's Parrot, let alone the 1985 winner, The Bone People, this feels like a literary throwback, a restrained, drawing room novel of manners and mild romantic intrigue that could have been published at almost any time in the preceding 50 years. In fact its unclear when it is set; there are cars - but they tend to be chauffeur driven; there is airline travel - but people seem to be generally unfamiliar with airports; there is television - in the TV room; people are disparaged for being "in trade" - was that really still a term in use in the mid 1980s? Perhaps it was. Most importantly, though, Edith Hope, our protaganist is banished to the end of season Hotel du Lac for an embarrassing incident that frankly, wasn't really that embarrassing for anyone other than her. 1980s Edith would have been encouraged by her friends to move on, rather than bolt for the Continent. So the timing is unclear,

All of which sounds as if I didn't enjoy the book, but actually I did. Edith, as a novelist, has a sharp eye for detail, and a waspish tone to her analysis of her fellow guests. Her description of the furnishings as "veal coloured" is exactly right. Her portraits of her fellow guests, are decorously insulting. She brings to life beautifully the turgid boredom of holidays in bad weather, near the end of season, in resorts that have no attractions other than shopping, the hairdresser, and the long walk.

A quiet pleasure then this novel, much like the Hotel du Lac itself. The plot, such as it is, is easy to summarise. Edith is a moderately successful romance writer, under a nom de plume. She conducts a moderately successful affair with an auctioneer, David, who the modern reader will probably think is taking advantage of her. He gets sex, comfort food, and no pressure to leave his wife, She gets to see him once or twice a month. Her life is bland, vaguely unsatisfying, and she fails to see a way to change anything. Until the "embarrassing incldent" leads to the purgatory of the Hotel du Lac

Once at the Hotel du Lac, other guests try to drag her into their own petty dramas. Monica has an eating disorder and a not coincidentally fat pet dog. The Puseys, mother and daughter, float by propelled by comfortable wealth and a total lack of imagination as to what to do with it, the smooth Mr Neville believes he understands Edith but might find he is completely wrong.

As I say, its all very readable, with a mild twist which the observant reader would have seem coming 50 pages earlier, if he / she hasn't dozed off in a comfortable armchair. Its that sort of novel; comfortable. show less

An excellent story with exceptional character depictions. The writing is so well done that you might close your eyes and imagine yourself in the Hotel du Lac. At first I wondered, tried guessing, why Edith was there, in an obscure hotel on Lake Geneva just before they close up for winter. Alone, with fellow guests with whom she has nothing in common. They cannot even supply grist for her writing. This is a subtle story where very word is to be savoured, every description relished. Highly recommended.

Anonymous female author arrives at country hotel, peruses grey landscape, ignores novel-in-progress, and instead writes breezy, boring letter to David, her former lover
whose family they betrayed, as well as the fiance she deserted. It would have been welcome to have Geoffrey Long come alive with spirit.

Mild mystery evolves about why she has banished herself from her home and friends.

This is undercut by her near-total self absorption ("melancholy of exile") and her relating of the hair styles, fashion, shopping
and concerns of rich and privileged women.

The most exciting main character is the weather on the lake and mountain during the a new season.

The meek, depressed author never changes into a person with enough character to be guided by show more her own feelings and
not always by other's expectations.

Worse still, the ending hinges on a plot twist which makes the strongest human character, Mr. Neville, a ridiculous liar.

One great resounding quote: "Naturally reclusive, she found it unsurprising that people left her to her fate." show less

Edith Hope, an English writer of romance novels, arrives at the titular hotel in Switzerland after a mysterious faux pas. The nature of this faux pas is not revealed until later in the storyline, keeping the reader interested in finding out why she would be staying at a remote hotel just before the hotel will be closed for the off season. What could this seemingly conventional and inconspicuous woman have done?

The narrative covers Edith’s interactions with the unusual hotel guests, including wealthy domineering widow, Mrs. Pusey, her daughter Jennifer, and the enigmatic Mr. Neville (who has his own agenda). Edith gets to know them well, avoiding work on her latest novel, and is slowly drawn into their lives.

The storyline is show more character-driven and slow in developing. Edith is gradually revealed to be a woman of greater complexity than meets the eye. The narrative includes beautiful prose, irony, and subtle humor. It is not for anyone looking for action. It is more about the desires of an individual to be her own person. show less