Hotel du Lac

This is Anita Brookner's Booker Prize (1984) winning novel about women. London-based, 39-year old romance writer, Edith Hope, has been temporarily exiled by her publisher and closest friends to an elegant but "stolid" old hotel on a lake in Switzerland after she inexcusably--according to them--backed out of her wedding, leaving her safe and respectable but not very exciting groom thoroughly humiliated. According to the Kirkus reviewer, "this Jamesian, Woolfian heroine is unmarried, wary, cerebral--torn between involvement and detachment, self-dramatization and self-deprecation." They go on to conclude, ""In many ways, this sad little comedy is less subtle, more artificial than Brookner's three previous, similar character-portraits: the themes are laid on thick, starting right off with Edith's surname and occupation; the James/Woolf echoes are blatantly arranged; the players (including Edith herself) are more types than credible characters. Still, for readers who relish a blend of extra-dry humor, tartly wistful introspection, and literary self-consciousness, this small entertainment--winner of England's Booker Prize--will be a delicate, provocative pleasure."

There was, apparently, quite a controversy about her winning the Booker and many thought that other books nominated that year were more deserving. Here is an excerpt from The Guardian: "Malcolm Bradbury called her winning novel, Hotel du Lac, "parochial", and thundered that it was not the sort of book that should have won the Booker. The New Statesman said it was "pretentious" although did at least do Brookner the kindness of noting that "it wasn't her fault that she won the prize." The author herself half-apologised that her books are "quite nice but unimportant" and suggested it might have been better if Empire Of The Sun had won in its place. She was right. Both from the point of view that Empire Of The Sun is so very good, but also because of the anger her victory provoked. The sense of outraged justice created by the perception that Hotel du Lac usurped Ballard's crown is unfortunate. This is not a book that should enrage. It is actually one that should be admired and enjoyed. Quietly maybe, but still fervently....Brookner's prose is so splendid in its own right that Hotel du Lac never felt less than impressive to me. But the understated and all too realistic discomfort of the opening gives way to something more overwrought. After pages and pages of delightfully painful getting-to-know-you small talk the characters suddenly seem to know each other far too well....plunging the reader out of the suspension of disbelief and making a previously very natural narrative seem contrived. It's hard to take Edith and her world entirely seriously from this point on and the ending, although elegant and enjoyably provocative, doesn't quite ring true." They go on to conclude that, "it's worth saying again that this is a book to enjoy for what it is rather than what it isn't. It's a funny, flawed, but still beautifully written study in melancholy. A pleasure. Even if it isn't as good as Empire Of The Sun."

My problem was that I just didn't like any of these people very much. While the dilemma Edith faces is, of course, huge for her, it seems too small to have the story revolve around it.  Also it made the story seem dated in a way I don't usually associate with historical novels.