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Review
This is Brookner's 22nd novel, and, as one might expect, it deals splendidly with human relationships. Elizabeth and Betsy are old friends dating back to their schooldays. Elizabeth's mother disapproved of their friendship, moaning at her daughter, "Can't you find someone more suitable?" Meaning someone richer, more fortunate, more useful. But Elizabeth is her own person, and she goes off and marries an older man, Digby, who is rather dull and boring. Elizabeth has no children, and embarks on an affair while Betsy seems to find romance in Paris. It is a clever, entertaining novel, beautifully observed.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
'I have come to believe that there can be no adequate preparation for the sadness that comes at the end, the sheer regret that one's life is finished, that one's failures remain indelible and one's successes illusory.'
Elizabeth and Betsy are old school friends. Born in 1948 and unready for the sixties, they had high hopes of the lives they would lead, even though their circumstances were so different.
When they meet again in their thirties, Elizabeth, married to the safe, older Digby is relieving the boredom of a cosy but childless marriage with an affair. Betsy seems to have found real romance in Paris. Are their lives taking off, or are they just making more of the wrong choices without even realising it?
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We met, and became friends of a sort, by virtue of the fact that we started school on the same day. Read the first page
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We met, and became friends of a sort, by virtue of the fact that we started school on the same day. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is another triumph for the author. I did not much care for her last effort (the only one out of a then 21 novels). This is vintage Brookner: lots of moral ambiguity, incisive writing, wonderful characters (Elizabeth, Betsy and Digby and Nigel), long lonely walks, and the marvelously predatory Edmund and Constance. Elizabeth, the main character, is an issue from a disastrous marriage, a first in the Brookner ouvre if I remember correctly. This then is the basis for a lot of exposition on "damage" which rounds out the novel nicely. Among the other motives is the idea of childhood and youth friendships which resonates throughout. The sex scenes are more frequent, detailed and even steamy--but remember, this isn't Judith Krantz. This is certainly worthy of a reread soon.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I know not everyone likes Anita Brookner as there is a touch of the melancholic about her writing, but I don't find her depressing at all. The themes of this novel are very similar to that of some others I have read, that of lonliness, grief, and the choices women make in their lives. Elizabeth married a man many years older than herself, while her childhood friend Betsy entered into a much less suitable relationship with a man in Paris. These choices they made years earlier continue to have an impact as they approach middle age. Elizabeth's life is hardly exciting, she is well off and has no need to work, and yet she fills her time somehow, she takes to walking in the early mornings or late evenings, she sees the seasons change, and contemplates taking a trip. The observations of everyday life, of women like Elizabeth, and their small preoccupations is what makes Anita Brookner's novels so poignant and true, despite the fact they exist in a world outside our own.
Format:Paperback
The book is narrated by Elizabeth, a woman born into privilege but that little too late to be part of the woman's new sexual and liberal freedoms during the decades following the sixties (a fact the reader is constantly reminded of) Elizabeth instead goes down a very traditional 1950s path. She marries a man much older than her self and settles into a moderately happy but passionless marriage, passion is supplied to her from her married lover. When her husband dies she lives a solitude life, never working, never doing anything really aside from going for long walks around London and keeping an eye on her oldest friend Betsy.
Betsy in contrast first lives in Paris involving herself in a passionate affair for many years but when she eventually returns to London her decisions shake up and impact Elizabeth's life.
Not a huge amount actually happens in this book, all the exciting stuff is going on in Betsy's life of which we only hear a small portion of from Elizabeth. The writing has a melancholic feel to it as Elizabeth ponders over her situation and the awful people in her life. At first I liked the book as I'm quite happy to read books with little plot. The beginnings of Elizabeth's marriage along with her bore of a husband lead me to think it was all going to be a bit Madame Bovary and the sad demise of Betsy going from sparkly, innocent, young women in Paris to being sucked into the dreary life of Elizabeth's London was well done.
But by the end I got very frustrated with Elizabeth. Elizabeth is an observer who does not get involved with anything. Elizabeth ponders over going aboard, taking an evening class, getting a job but never actually even coming close to doing these things. Her excuse is always the `well I was born too late as a women to do anything with my life' this might work over a period of small time but not over several decades. Just like Elizabeth's life, it all became very dull.
In conclusion I can only think that this novel would have worked much better as a novella which the novel would be if Elizabeth's repetitive ramblings were removed.
Betsy in contrast first lives in Paris involving herself in a passionate affair for many years but when she eventually returns to London her decisions shake up and impact Elizabeth's life.
Not a huge amount actually happens in this book, all the exciting stuff is going on in Betsy's life of which we only hear a small portion of from Elizabeth. The writing has a melancholic feel to it as Elizabeth ponders over her situation and the awful people in her life. At first I liked the book as I'm quite happy to read books with little plot. The beginnings of Elizabeth's marriage along with her bore of a husband lead me to think it was all going to be a bit Madame Bovary and the sad demise of Betsy going from sparkly, innocent, young women in Paris to being sucked into the dreary life of Elizabeth's London was well done.
But by the end I got very frustrated with Elizabeth. Elizabeth is an observer who does not get involved with anything. Elizabeth ponders over going aboard, taking an evening class, getting a job but never actually even coming close to doing these things. Her excuse is always the `well I was born too late as a women to do anything with my life' this might work over a period of small time but not over several decades. Just like Elizabeth's life, it all became very dull.
In conclusion I can only think that this novel would have worked much better as a novella which the novel would be if Elizabeth's repetitive ramblings were removed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Painful
This is a painfully boring book to read. The author appears to have gone a bit crazy with the thesaurus which gives the narrator's voice far more intelligence then her narrow... Read more
Published on 20 Oct 2008 by Mrs J
Elizabeth, get a job!
As one of the other reviewers commented, I rarely write online reviews. But after reading this book, I'm looking for someone to give me my weekend back. Read more
Published on 19 May 2008 by Huish
torpor inducing dishwater dullness
I'm not often moved to write a review, but this book was so dull i felt moved to warn other potential readers. Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2007 by Misty
Awful. And I never have said that about any book I have ever read!
This book was really, really boring. Nothing happens, the characters don't really develop, the language is very pretentious (the author must have used a dictionary to deliberately... Read more
Published on 1 Aug 2006 by M. Cordon
Pengiun: how the mihgty are fallen!
The cover puff from the Spectator immediately attracted me to this book - though perhaps not for the right reasons. It reads: "Splendid, melancholy . . . Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2005 by Margaret Shiels
Dreadful
One of the worst books I've read in ages. The author spent too much time describing the thoughts and feelings of the main character and did not pay enough attention to the plot. Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2004 by Mrs. L. Anastasi
BORING
I just couldn't get into this book. Pages and pages of the heroine's thoughts, and infrequent action. A good plot, but could have been handled a lot better. Read more
Published on 27 Dec 2003 by Joanne
Disappointment
I was first attracted by the topic of this book but never managed to get into it. Even worse, the more I was reading, the more I grew to dislike it! Read more
Published on 16 Sep 2003 by carolyn hockley
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