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Hotel du Lac (1984)

by Anita Brookner

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2,767985,151 (3.6)362
Fiction. Literature. HTML:BOOKER PRIZE WINNER â?¢ When romance writer Edith Hopeâ??s life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, she flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to restore her to her senses.
"Brookner's most absorbing novel ... wryly realistic ... graceful and attractive." â??Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review

But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love's casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive.
In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Wh
… (more)
  1. 30
    Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (cbl_tn)
    cbl_tn: Brookner uses the phrase "excellent women" a couple of times in this novel, and it seems to be a conscious reference to Pym's novel.
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» See also 362 mentions

English (93)  French (2)  Dutch (1)  Hebrew (1)  All languages (97)
Showing 1-5 of 93 (next | show all)
2023 note:

Reread as the novel was mentioned in Daniel Schreiber's [Alone: Reflections on Solitary Living]. Probably third read. The characters are so spot on and of their era, though I can't imagine them being exactly the same now. Life has changed so much in the past 38 years. Edith would now be in her late 70s too.

An easy read but deft writing. Brookner doesn't drop a stitch. None of her characters are straightforwardly likeable, but each is a perfect hue in the painting. If it were a crime novel it would not quite, but almost be a locked room crime. ( )
  Caroline_McElwee | Dec 15, 2023 |
This is an altogether fabulous book and I am shocked this was the first I'd heard of Anita Brookner! She has a way with description that makes your heart sing, and she described her characters so well- with a well-placed word or two- that you can see them and hear them. And laugh! This is a funny book, with many truths in evidence. Read it. ( )
  Dabble58 | Nov 11, 2023 |
I liked this book that is focused on a novel writer who makes an unusual, disturbing decision and is therefore pushed into going away for a month to allow people to be restored to their previous state, no longer overcome by their reaction to what they perceived as the horror of that decision. She goes to a bland, fine, old hotel in Switzerland where she encounters a number of people - none of whom are "ordinary folks." Anything more would introduce spoilers. I liked, but did not love, this book. I am baffled why it won the Booker Prize. ( )
  RickGeissal | Aug 16, 2023 |
An absolute delight of a book, and the perfect reading material for when you're feeling a little bit 'stuck'. ( )
  soylentgreen23 | Aug 10, 2023 |
I enjoyed this book tremendously. Brookner's prose is beautifully simple, clear and witty. The premise is one that has been used countless times since half way through the nineteenth century - the protagonist is exiled to a remote, out-of-season town as a result of some disgrace - but Brookner enlivens it with a kind of personal feminism that I found compelling. Edith Hope, the subject of this particular exile, finds that despite her intelligence and competence her options are severely curtailed by her gender. The author's sense of outrage at this is what makes the brutal characterisation of all the other characters in the novel not nasty but incisive.

It's such a subtle, restrained book that any more discussion if it would do it a disservice, in my view. I highly recommend it. ( )
  robfwalter | Jul 31, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 93 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Brookner, Anitaprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
OKarma, AlexandraNarratormain authorsome editionsconfirmed
Fili, LouiseCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gálvölgyi, Juditsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kaarma, JüriIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Massey, AnnaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Moxley, SusanCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pedersen, JudyCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sáenz de Heredia, ManuelTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Siikarla, EvaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Talvet, MalleTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Wolff, EvaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Dedication
For Rosamund Lehmann
First words
From the window all that could be seen was a receding area of grey.
Quotations
A mild and scholarly man who looked like a country doctor, he disliked the more sociable aspects of his calling, but had nevertheless booked a table in a cathedral-like restaurant, where the patrons cowered in worship before the marvels to be set in front of them, and had gamely tackled the intricately coiled fillet of fish which had seemed to be the simplest item on the menu.
There here and now, the quotidian, as beginning to acquire substance. The dimension of terror that this realization brought with it - as if knowing the place too well might give her presence there some reality, some validity - was quickly palliated by the extraordinary accumulation of facts
And as most of Mrs. Pusey's sentences began with the words 'Of course', they had a range of tranquil confidence which somehow occluded any attempt to introduce an opinion of her own.
Mrs. Pusey's disposition to flirt, even when there was no one around to flirt with, was, to Edith, somehow disturbing, although it was done with such lack of inhibition that it should have appeared harmless. On those rare occasions when Mrs. Pusey was sitting alone, Edith had observed her in all sorts of attention-catching ploys, creating a small locus of busyness that inevitably invited someone to come to her aid. She would not be still or be quiet until she had captured the attention of whomever she judged to be necessary for her immediate purpose.
The sensation of being entertained by words was one which she encountered all too rarely. People expect writers to entertain them, she reflected.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Fiction. Literature. HTML:BOOKER PRIZE WINNER â?¢ When romance writer Edith Hopeâ??s life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, she flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to restore her to her senses.
"Brookner's most absorbing novel ... wryly realistic ... graceful and attractive." â??Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review

But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love's casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive.
In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Wh

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Penguin Australia

An edition of this book was published by Penguin Australia.

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