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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
A beautiful, strange book. Edith Hope is a romance novel writer. After an event, which is not revealed until late in the novel, she is banished to a Swiss hotel, Hotel du Lac. The story revolves around Edith and the other guests in the hotel. The words of this story are so well put together, though I sometimes had to stop to look up words or foreign phrases. Brookner relates just enough. Hotel du Lac is in some ways a story of a different time; it was first published in the mid 1980's. But it is a time I lived through and I could relate to Edith so well.
"It hardly mattered what she ate these days, since she no longer mattered to herself." (29)
"Her broken night had left her with an aching head and an instinctive shrinking from both food and company." (65)
"Suddenly there was an antagonism between them, as he intended, for antagonism blunts despair." (94)
"It hardly mattered what she ate these days, since she no longer mattered to herself." (29)
"Her broken night had left her with an aching head and an instinctive shrinking from both food and company." (65)
"Suddenly there was an antagonism between them, as he intended, for antagonism blunts despair." (94)
I read this back in the 80s, and the impression of spare elegant sadness has stayed with me. I included Lake Lucerne on my European tour partly from the memory of this book.
Lucerne is a really lovely city to visit, fortunately.
Lucerne is a really lovely city to visit, fortunately.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The constant references to Virgina Woolf underline that this is often Mrs Dalloway lite, especially in the early stages. It’s hard to understand why this won the Booker Prize in a competitive year, but it is a short novel with many pleasures, not least of which is the sly humour. It’s hard to imagine now the social mores that would have seen Edith flee to Switzerland, let alone the speech from Mr Neville in which he suggests a marriage of convenience. What strikes true is the situation of the “other woman”, rarely explored in fiction in this way and I enjoyed the ending with its slight twist…
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Beautiful writing, and I liked the last twenty pages a lot. The rest of it was too slow for me and the detached style never made it feel real.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed this book. I found it very interesting from the start although nothing really happened. This is about the internal struggle of a woman who found herself ostracised by her social circle due to a past mistake. I really liked the way the quirky characters were portrayed through the eyes of the narrator and the melancholic feeling of the book.