Strangers

Amusing, sharp and unusually accommodating. these characters give meaning to the term, "growing old gracefully."

Paul Sturgis is a 70-something bachelor living in a quiet, London flat. Never married, and having only one living relative, a distant cousin named Helena, Paul finds himself wandering about looking for something but he's not sure what. To avoid the dreaded Christmas invitation from Helena, he decides to take holiday in Venice. In Venice, he meets Vicky Gardner. Vicky is an interesting sort. She is pretty, recently divorced and essentially homeless since she has no permanent place to call home. She flits from place to place, seemingly happy in her travels. Paul, unusually reserved gives his number to Vicky and then immediately regrets it. How lonely does one have to be to finally realize that at the age of 72, being with someone might be better than being alone? This was my first Brookner and I enjoyed it immensely. These characters are proper, polite and exceedingly friendly, but utterly lonely. They are "strangers" in that they have no idea how to co-exist with one another. Innocent conversations turn into something else and then before you know it, in walks awkwardness. It's all incredibly entertaining but in a quiet, understated way. I understand that Strangers is Brookner's 23rd novel. I can't believe it took me this long to read one of her books but now I want to read them all. It's not as if there was a lot going on in this one, or that it was even a page-turner, but it's the type of writing that I enjoy. When I writer can take every day things and make them interesting, then he/she has my attention. Brookner fans, which of her books shall I read next?

Art Historian Draws Another Great Character

Anita Brookner won the Booker prize in 1984 for Hotel du Lac. As with many of her books, the main character runs from something (in that case to Switzerland) to escape and struggle with demons in the present or past. She has written 24 novels, and, I have read almost all and none of the last six. The ones I have read contained this story line about women. Her latest novel, Strangers, is the first I know about that involves a man.

Now, this might seem boring - mining the same plot line over and over, but she draws her characters as finely as a detailed, realistic painting. Brookner spent years teaching art history in England. Furthermore, each of these characters deals with the escape and resolution in an entirely different manner.

Paul Sturgis has retired from a responsible position at a bank, and gradually, he is shucking off all his old associations. Several women inhabit his real and imagined world at the moment. Brookner writes, "The illusion once again, proved superior to the reality" (214). This sums up Paul's problems with indecisiveness and an inability to put his foot down when he knew he should and, in fact, planned to do so. "Air was his element, weightlessness his ideal condition" (173).

Reflecting on the memory of a childhood friend, Paul recalls waving to a woman every day as he passed her shop, "they had lost touch, had lost sight of each other, and would never meet again, never raise their hands in acknowledgement as they passed each other on the street. That was what growing up did to some friendships, and growing older failed to redeem them. But somehow the memory persisted, in the strangest of ways, and she would appear to him in dreams, unaltered, much as she had been when first encountered, on her way to school" (51).

Paul enjoys reading and mentions Henry James on numerous occasions. That connection carries a lot of weight, since I could not help thinking of James' story, "The Beast in the Jungle." In this long, marvelous story, John Marcher has difficulty communicating his feelings, and loses an opportunity for a relationship with a woman who loved him. Finally, late in life, he has a chance to make amends, but he reverts to his old behavior and loses her again. Brookner delves as deeply into Paul Sturgis's psyche as James does -- only she composes her sentences to a much more manageable length.

I have been a long time away from Brookner, but I have remedied that situation. Now I need to find those missing six novels and fill in the gaps. If you have never read Brookner, or never heard of her, start with Hotel du Lac. If you like psychological fiction and interesting characters in absorbing situations, you will be hooked. 5 stars.

--Chiron www.rabbitreader.blogspot.com

No disappointment for the Anita Brookner fan

This is yet another beautifully written atmospheric London book. Some readers joke that AB writes the same book over and over, no no, she uses the same notes but the composition is original, haunting, so skillfully woven that you truly dare not miss a comma. The elderly main character Paul Sturgis is completely believable; Ms. Brookner's psychological penetration of her fictional characters is always satisfying.
I have read all her books and have never been disappointed. They are a cherished part of my library.

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