If you have not read Anita Brookner this is a wonderful novel with which to start. I daresay you will not look back as you traverse some of her many (too numerous to count) novels of romance and the social difficulties of young women - and sometimes not so young - in love. In this one the protagonist, Kitty Maule, longs to be "totally unreasonable, totally unfair, very demanding, and very beautiful." She is instead clever, reticent, self-possessed, and striking. For years Kitty has been tactfully courting her colleague Maurice Bishop, a detached, elegant English professor. Now, running out of patience, Kitty's amorous pursuit takes her from rancorous academic committee rooms and lecture halls to French cathedrals and Parisian rooming houses, from sittings with her dress-making grandmother to seances with a grandmotherly psychic. Touching, funny, and stylistically breathtaking, Providence is a brightly polished gem of romantic comedy. My favorite moments are the many literary references which warm the heart of this inveterate bibliophile. The best of Brookner that I have read is Hotel du Lac for which she was awarded the Booker Prize. However, if you do not want to start at the deep end you should try reading Providence first.
There was a period a few years back where I read a stack of Anita Brookner novels, one after another. I didn't especially want to continue, but it seemed like too much trouble to stop. At some point I realized I was getting very depressed. Anyway, Providence is very much in line with Brookner's other books. There's the frustratingly inert heroine, lacking some very basic ability to pursue her own happiness; patiently waiting out her dull, sparkless existence; single and contemptuous of other single women. Nothing much happens, except the small and large disappointments that you, the reader, can predict right from the start, but which the heroine realizes much too late. It's dull and it's dismal, but so precisely observed and beautifully written that it is, in a perverse way, a pleasure to read.
What do You think about Providence (1994)?
A good read. Charming, understated, and strangely dated - set in 1980s England. A classic literary novel, about a literature lecturer in a provincial university, written by an arts professor. I'm not sure what it all means, and whether there is any message, but its subtle and engaging and draws you in. I read it on a short flight. Probably there is not much to be said about the story, and perhaps the strength of it luies in the characterisation of the female subject of the novel, her colleagues and students, and the dreadful history lecturer with the mindless self-absorbed faith that the heroine mysteriously targets, to no good end. R
—Robert
This short novel is about Kitty Maule, an Englishwoman of French descent who attempts to move things along in her life, which has become somewhat stagnant. While working on her debut lecture at a small university, she also pursues resolution for her long, circumspect courtship of her fellow academic, Maurice. Kitty's attempts to effect change and movement in her life meet with only partial success. I think this novel is alrgely about the disappointments that can result from a too-careful approach to life.
—Carol
