Dolly

by Anita Brookner

Overview

In her superbly accomplished novel, Anita Brookner proves that she is our most profound observer of women's lives, posing questions about feminine identity and desire with a stylishness that conveys an almost sensual pleasure.

From the moment Jane Manning first meets her aunt Dolly, she is both fascinated and appalled. Where Jane is tactful and shy, Dolly is flamboyant and unrepentantly selfish, a connoisseur of fine things, an exploiter of wealthy people. But as the exigencies of family bring Jane and Dolly together, Brookner shows us that we may end up loving people we cannot bring ourselves to like -- and that this paradox makes love all the more precious and miraculous.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679745785
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/15/1995
Series:	Vintage Contemporaries
Edition description:	Us ed.
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Anita Brookner was born in London and, apart from several years in Paris, was a lifelong Londoner. She trained as an art historian and taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art until 1988. She is the author of twenty-seven books, including the Booker Prize–winning novel Hotel Du Lac. She died in 2016.

Editorial Reviews

"Compelling...takes us deep into the territory of the heart, with all its rocky roads and shimmering possibilities,"

-- Los Angeles Times

"About as wonderful as anything Brookner has ever written."

-- Carol Kino, The New York Times Book Review

"Poignant, beautifully told.... Only a writer of great passion, conviction and artistry could [create such] a spellbinding portrait of the dreams and frustrations of the human heart."

-- Christian Science Monitor

From the Publisher

Darkly beautiful, ardent Dolly, her stolid spouse in tow, favors her London in-laws and shy young niece Jane with heady, random visits from Brussels. Dolly's eagerness, her hunger for love (though she has none to give) mesmerize Jane, who is the percipient narrator of Brookner's latest delicately brooding novel. Soon the widowed Dolly, ``always needy, always greedy,'' shows up in her silks, her faux pearls, her mink sprayed with Joy perfume. Contemptuous of Jane and her sedately affluent parents, Dolly sponges brazenly from them to indulge a craving for luxuries. Jane and Dolly dislike each other, and their antipathy gives a fine, shimmering edge to Jane's insight. Dolly's exultant moment comes at age 68, when she can flaunt her most flattering accessory--vulgarian Harry, owner of a fleet of taxis, who enables her to fulfill ``archaic female longings.'' Brookner ( Fraud ) renders with impeccable finesse the complexities of female desire as she meditates on the emotional legacies left by mothers to daughters. Parallel chapters depict the girlhoods of Dolly and Jane's mother, both resonant with continental Jewish culture, both engendering needs. Jane's brush with American feminists sparks a query: ``If they . . . emancipate themselves from their ancestral longings, will they be disappointed?'' The ambiguous, subtly shifting relationship between Dolly and Jane enters an astonishing dimension as Brookner brilliantly unfolds their story. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Jane, a successful young author, prefers a quiet life, unlike her Aunt Dolly, a flamboyant soul always on display and seeking admiration. Utterly dissimilar and not overly fond of each other, the two women are bound together by unexpected events and consequences dating from Jane's early childhood. As Jane narrates the story of their incongruous mutual dependencies, she speculates on the nature of human connections and the female experience in ways that resonate beyond the deceptively simple plot line. Readers fond of Brief Lives ( LJ 3/15/91) will demand this subtle new work by Booker Prize winner Brookner. Recommended for most fiction collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/93.-- Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.

Library Journal

Immensely rewarding….Not merely is it the best of Brookner's novels; it is close to perfection.
—Washington Post Book World

Jonathan Yardley

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