I wasn't going to review this one, but having finished listening a few minutes ago, I've changed my mind.A reviewer has stated that if the protagonist, Fay, were to attend a costume party, she'd attend as a Question Mark by default. I agree; her life so identified with being a wife (and widow), that we never really learn exactly who she really is. She even seems to try the role of adulteress, although the fellow is dead by the time the story gets going, and his widow (as it later turns out I believe), suspected, and didn't really care. So, in the end, she's left trying her best to be an elderly nobody, after a husband whom it turned out wanted a spouse, but not a wife (equal partner), an affair that meant more to her than the others involved, and a potential, final coupling that turned out to be Mister Wrong. Poor Fay ... poor well-meaning Fay.What gives this book any meaning? Why not two stars (for the writing quality) and an "I found it rather a bore and a chore"? Julia.She's been referred to as an "ageing dominatrix" and "a Bitch with a Capital B" elsewhere, and I can't argue that one at all. I could easily see Patsy Stone from Absolutely Fabulous dropping by for a few free drinks: " 'Sup, Jules?" "Patsy, darling!" Soulmates, indeed. A bit of a spoiler that she was the "wronged" woman whose husband was at it with Fay. Perhaps Fay felt guilty over that, but it seems more that she was sucked in by Julia's selective helplessness. Anna Massey did a terrific job voicing Julia as so incredibly narcissistic, but print readers seem to have gotten that down well, so Brookner hit a home run on that score. You have to marvel at her ability to attract people with "Use Me" signs on their backs. The ending was neatly done, as far as the Julia Problem was concerned, but a bit ... unresolved for Fay's future. Recommended? Well ... you'll either be fascinated by "How Do We Solve a Problem Like Julia?" (hat tip to the Von Trapps), or incredibly frustrated by the endless parade of dysfunction. If you're new to Brookner, I found Hotel du Lac more approachable.
A Brookner book [1990] is certainly not cheerful! The two main characters are upper-middle-class women who each spend their last years alone [husbands having died]. The one is a convincingly described self-centered manipulator. The other allows herself to be manipulated -- by everyone, pretty much. Although she is deep into introspection throughout the book, she doesn't seem to me to ever get beyond her childhood training of dutifully pleasing and caring for other people.I find it all quite depressing. She is convinced that life without a male companion is without value and without happiness, and her conviction [apparently] prevents her from enjoying all the things and people potentially around her. Among all her inner monologuing I detect quite a number of contradictions; I am assuming - hoping - that Brookner has put these there on purpose.A typical passage [p100]:"If I still looked forward hopefully to some experience that remained vague in outline, if I still dressed with care and was fastidious about my appearance, I was nevertheless quite resigned to spending the remainder of my life alone. I even took a certain pride in the prospect. No more unwelcome hope and disappointments, no more wild anticipations, brooding let-downs. I was of an uncomplaining disposition, had never nagged or belaboured my husband, was good at disguising my cares. It seemed to me a better thing to suffer than constantly to accuse. Yet all this good behaviour, if that is what it was, had left me a little sad, a little passive, and that occasionally seemed to me unfair. But I put such thoughts out of my mind when they occurred and on the whole they did not bother me unduly."But of course these thoughts bothered her a very great deal, and constantly. It's sad. Especially because she probably speaks/stands for a great many women in our society.
What do You think about Brief Lives (2001)?
Definitely one of the most boring books I have ever read.Sometimes, I'm okay with very little action and a lot of introspection. The woman - Fay - was just far too introspective and depressing for me. And she went on and on and on about her unhappy life and how she just basically gave up and resigned herself to a life of loneliness. Not to mention she had some masochistic wish to be friends with a woman named Julia who was clearly a Bitch with a capital B.Most of us would have dumped Julia long ago. Preferably in the Thames. (Did I mention this takes place in London?Fay went on and on and on about her middle age and her old age and how it was just the way with women of her day and age. I believe she was born in the late 1920's. At some point, I wanted to slap her and tell her to "get a life".I finished it, though. Finished the book as if performing penance.
—Sara
Reading this novel is like reading the diary of a woman's marriage and widowhood and her relationship with a vain, narcissistic, former theater actress. This is very much a character study which I enjoy. Fay shares with us the expectations, disappointments, fears, accommodations, and consolations of a rather lonely life. I liked Fay. She was not a particularly brave or assertive woman, but she did find the strength to make for herself the kind of life in which she could be happy. I was drawn in my Brookner's limpid prose and look forward to reading more of her books.
—Wendy
As we single women toddle towards our deathbeds, all alone, how should we best be feeling? ('At least HE isn't here to see me in this mess!' or 'Help me Help me Help me!' or 'Ahem! I have some last words here! Let go of that drip and copy this down!') or what? The narrator is telling her story, the story of her life, from the perspective of a well-behaved English woman in her sixties. She considers herself elderly. She is certain that she will die without any loved ones present to help her on her way.She is in a morbid state; her husband has died, her lover has died, and the nasty, demanding wife of her lover has NOT died but has kept a coterie of lonely women around to admire her, be insulted by her, and do anything they can for her. Our heroine, being a creature of Brookner, allows herself to be swept away by this aging dominatrix, and hates herself for it.Her test comes when an unmarried man shows an interest in her. Soon she is inviting him to lunch, to dinner. He is elusive, rude, totally armored against any kind of intimacy whatsoever. She likes him but finds him impossible. Nevertheless, she is hardwired to want a man as a companion. These situations resolve themselves both singly and together as this single woman, looking towards death, manages to remember to stay alive in the meantime.
—Fredsky
