This week I read Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac. I bought the book from a local second hand book store for $3 and at the time, I was deliberating whether or not to buy it because it won the Booker Prize in 1984.

I’m not a fan of Booker Prize winning books.

Every time I had read a book that won this prize, (Wolf Hall jumps out as one the worst reading experiences as an example), I’ve been disappointed.

However, I put my $3 coins on the counter, picked up the book and walked out of the store still relatively undecided if I did the right thing or not. After all, $3 could have gone towards a cup of coffee.

Nevertheless, I read the book and instantly, I was immersed into the quiet world of an isolated hotel at Lake Geneva at the quiet time of the year. The hotel, filled with female guests who were all in some form of exile being placed there by the males in their lives to “sort themselves out”.

What a brilliant book! (You can see the entire movie on YouTube)

Instantly I connected with the Virginia Woolf character, Edith Hope, an unmarried woman of a certain age who “should have been married” by now but instead, chose to have a life of her choosing much to the chagrin of her friends who placed her there so that she can reflect on her own behaviour. (We find out that she had an affair). She is propositioned by a male guest who offers his hand in marriage as a way for her to manage in society and gives her the leeway to do what she likes – simply, he just wants to have a wife because that is what society expects. However, being married he says, offers her (and him) the licence to misbehave.

The book made me think about the expectations of society on unmarried women and there aren’t many books that write about this perspective albeit say, Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own.

There are heaps of books written about married women, divorced women, women with children…but very few of women who deliberately choose not to marry or have children. What makes this a stand out is that this book was published in 1984 so it’s fair to say that it was still quite a rare thing back then. Maybe in 2023, it’s not so strange.

Nevertheless, Edith is a woman of principles. She refuses to bow down to other’s expectations because she realises she loves her life, her house, her time to write. There is a little twist in the book where she goes on her own personal transformation ready to commit to marrying Neville until she sees him sneak out of the other female guest rooms one morning and promptly – and calmly – changes her mind. It’s then we see that as females, we don’t need to conform to what others think we should do and never doubt our own thinking.

This book made me look into the life of recluse Anita Brookner and I found this article “There Was No One Remotely Like Her,” written by Julian Barnes about how he used to have lunch with her. Partly in awe of her, partly fearful of her, she must have been someone who was revered quietly.

He says of her, ” I can’t think of a novelist less likely to write an autobiography. She was fiercely moral without being moralistic, and fiercely truthful…..And while she swam in literature, she had little interest in the literary life, let alone the remotest kind of careerism. You would not catch her on the circuit of literary festivals, or dashing in to the Front Row studio. She was pleased with her success, but did nothing to encourage or discourage readers except by doing what counted: writing another novel.”

What’s not to love about this description of her? I wonder what she would have thought of people and fame driven society nowadays if she was still alive.

Julian Barnes even based his latest book, Elizabeth Finch on her. (At the time I read Elizabeth Finch, I had NO idea of Anita Brookner but I instantly loved her character). You can see my review of Elizabeth Finch below.

I think that’s what women who don’t follow society’s expectations create – there’s something about them that we think is bold. They are confident in themselves to not follow other’s rules.

After reading more about this female author, I started to think that much of what she talked about and wrote has a DIRECT BEARING in how we behave today. Nothing has changed.

What I like about her is that she was an expert in her own right – a distinguished art historian who at 53 decided to write fiction and then wrote a book a year. I found this inspiring. No dilly dally, no pontificating or droning on about the whys and wherefores of stuff, she got on with it – unlike me – who’s still procrastinating and dabbling with anything and everything under the sun EXCEPT for the real thing – writing – that I love but at the same time, fear – in case I fail.

I should learn my lesson from her.

Here are some of Anita Brookner’s quotes:

“In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.”

“It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read”

“Always let them think of you as singing and dancing”

It was then that I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you find you have no voice at the world’s tribunals, and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state “I hurt” or ” I hate” or ” I want”. Or indeed, “Look at me”. And I do not go back on this. For once a thing is known it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten. And writing is the enemy of forgetfulness, or thoughtlessness. For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory.”

“I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.”