Anita Brookner
Description
Review Praise for Anita Brookner" Brookner's impeccable craftsmanship and worldly irony make each of her novels memorable."
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--Publishers Weekly" One of the very few contemporary authors whose novels deserve to live on well into the next century." --The Washington Post Book World " Brookner's control over the material is absolute." --Jane Smiley" Anita Brookner works a spell on the reader; being under it is both an education and a delight." -- The Washington Post Book World" If Henry James were around, the only writer he'd be reading with complete approval would be Anita Brookner." --The New York Times Book Review" Brookner is a writer of great skill and precision. Passages of brilliant writing abound, hard-won insights that startle us with Brookner's clarity and succinct intelligence." --Michael Dorris, Los Angeles Times Book Review Product Description A quiet young woman who has lived most of her life under the watchful eyes of her parents, Claire Pitt finds her ordinary life turned upside down when her job at a local bookstore leads to a complicated affair with a mysterious young man. From Library Journal Brookner once again takes on the themes of loneliness, the scars we bear from the emotional wounds of our past, and the ways that people do (and do not) connect as she tells the story of Claire Pitt, an unmarried woman in London. Claire, whose mother just died, takes a job in a bookstore owned by two elderly sisters. Working in the basement (the foreign language section, which hardly ever has any customers), her task is typing up the articles and journal entries of the sisters' long dead father, readying them for possible future publication. When older, attractive, and somewhat mysterious Martin Gibson comes to the basement one day looking for a book, Claire is drawn to him. They become involved despite Claire's knowledge throughout that Martin feels no real connection to her, and what begins for Claire as another of her brief and superficial affairs moves into the territory of obsession. Brookner's characters are somewhat chilly and distant, and although the reader feels empathy for Claire's situation, it is also hard to understand her self-delusion. Diana Quick's narration is superb; she fully conveys the despair and pain Claire experiences and enhances the emotional nuances in the story. Her first-person reading of Claire's thoughts and conversations are always compelling. Despite Quick's talents, this remains ultimately a distant novel best appreciated by loyal Brookner fans.DMelody A. Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, NC Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Anita Brookner is the author of nineteen finely crafted novels, including Falling Slowly, Visitors, and Hotel du Lac, which won the Booker Prize. An international authority on eighteenth-century painting, she became the first female Slade Professor at Cambridge University. She lives in London. From AudioFile Anita Brookner's novels are about people on the fringe of society, not due to subversive ideas, but because they are old or shy and time and society has passed them by. This heroine, Claire Pitt, is a mere 29-years old, but she's already a confirmed spinster. Diana Quick's voice, timbre and pace are of an older and whinier woman, so the listener has to remind herself that Claire is a young and attactive woman. This is irksome, because Claire does think and act with a modern outlook toward sexuality, upon which hangs the plot. B.H.B. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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