A review by sarahmatthews
The Next Big Thing by Anita Brookner

reflective sad slow-paced

The Next Big Thing by Anita Brookner

Read in Braille

Viking

Pub. 2002, 247pp

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Julius is retired, his parents and brother have died and his wife has left him. He’s living alone in central London, his adopted city after his family fled from Nazi Germany. He’s looking for the next big thing in his life, pondering his past and feeling concern for his failing health. Sounds gloomy, right?! Well, the insightful writing just carries you along and pulls you in before you know it and you’re hooked on this story of loneliness and regret in later life. I found myself, like I often do with Anita Brookner, rereading sections due to the beautiful prose. Here’s an example to give you a flavour: 

“He raised his eyes to a rooffline bristling with television aerials , lowered them again to windows still blank before the evening lights were lit. The sky was already darkening; signs of spring were absent, and yet the chilly damp held a promise of greenness, of new life only just in abeyance. it was even possible to appreciate that sky; its opaque blue reminded him of certain pictures, though no picture could compete with this strange sense of immanence. With the crust of the earth ready to break into life, the roots expanding to disclose flowers, the trees graciously putting forth leaves. The impassivity of nature never ceased to amaze him. This awakening process was surely superior to anything captured on canvas, yet art made all phenomena its province.in its unceasing war with the effort of capturing moments of time art won this unequal contest, but only just. The majestic indifference of nature was there to remind one of ones place, and no doubt to serve as a corrective to the artist’s ambition. When the canvas was finished it was already a relic, outside change. And surely change was primordial; all must obey it. To ignore the process was to ignore the evidence of one’s own evolutionary cycle.’

Haunting, introspective and with a hint of dark comedy this was so good, just maybe  one to approach with caution if you’re about to retire! This novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002.