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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Edith Hope, a young romance novelist sojourns at an old-world lakeside hotel to reflect on her life choices and work on her current book in this beautifully written novel with a sleepy atmosphere characteristic of Woolf or Bowen. You hardly know what era you're in. It's near the end of the season and the quiet hotel is over-populated with women who've all been put to pasture in some form. As a writer/observer, Edith watches, scrutinizes and invents plausible storylines for her fellow guests as the reader does of her until more is revealed about her personal circumstances. In sepia-toned elegance, Edith realises there's more than one option available to women of a particular persuasion. Leisurely.
Hmmmmm…
lots of words. In the end I felt much.
Thank you Anita Brookner
lots of words. In the end I felt much.
Thank you Anita Brookner
I read this book for one of my book clubs. I thought it was just ok. Our discussion about the book was very rich, though!
I enjoyed this small, elegantly feminist novel. Edith Hope is a writer of romances who commits an unpardonable social sin, and so is pressured to remove herself from the community, and go to an out-of-season hotel in Switzerland. In the beginning of the novel, Edith looks around her and observes the other denizens. Passively, she allows them to move her into their orbits. It seems, once again, that life is making room for her to be a respectable lady again. But there’s something in Edith that has a lot of trouble cooperating with this process.
This is a subtle, quiet book. I didn't know how I felt about it at first - I would have rated it a 3 initially, but found that it continued to simmer and I discovered the depths of the social analysis behind the story as time passed. It is a quick, unexciting read, but makes you think about the social roles of women and men and how those (and we) change (or don't) through marriage, infidelity, and love. It is not a particularly hopeful tale, but I think one can choose (or not) to see it as so, in the end.
Poignant and beautifully written. Read after a reshowing on television of the BBC film of it from 1986.
Didn’t enjoy reading this book. Nothing seemed to happen although I enjoyed her descriptions of the other women, it was immediately soured by her being unnecessarily critical of them.
30min
30min