BIOGRAPHY
Brookner, Anita (born 16 July 1928) is an English novelist and art historian who was
born in Herne Hill, a suburb of London.
Brookner's father, Newson Bruckner, was a Polish immigrant, and her
mother, Maude Schiska, was a singer whose father had emigrated from Poland and
founded a tobacco factory. Maude changed the family's surname to Brookner owing
to anti-German sentiment in England. Anita Brookner had a lonely childhood,
although her grandmother and uncle lived with the family, and her parents,
secular Jews, opened their house to Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecution
during the 1930s and World War II. Brookner, an only child, has never married
and took care of her parents as they aged.
She studied at King's College, London and at the Courtauld Institute of
Art in London, where she received a BA in History in 1949. She spent three
years studying in Paris as a postgraduate, and went on to lecture in art at
Reading University and the Courtauld Institute in 1953, where she specialized
in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French art. She became the first woman to
be named as Slade Professor of Art at Cambridge University in 1967. She was
promoted to Reader at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1977, where she worked until
her retirement in 1988. Brookner was made a CBE (Commander of the British
Empire) in 1990. She is a Fellow of King's College London and of Murray Edwards
College, CambridgeHall, Cambridge.
Brookner wrote several
scholarly books including Watteau (1968), The Genius of the Future:
Studies in French Art Criticism (1971), Greuze: The Rise and Fall of an
Eighteenth Century Phenomenon (1972), and Jacques-Louis David
(1980). Although Brookner's works were generally well-received by academia, not
all scholars agreed on the academic merits of her research. Dr. Graham Smith,
retired professor and vice-principal of Wulfrun College (Wolver-hampton,
England), wrote the following for Wulfrun's American Studies Resource Guide
(1996). "Some very poor history in this [Jacques-Louis David] but
it's an accessible biography and if treated with caution does have some useful
material on the Revolution's pageant master. Take no notice of anything she
says on the Revolution as a whole."
Throughout her books, several parallels clearly exist between Brookner
and her protagonists, who are almost always highly intellectual, emotionally
reserved women alienated from the mainstream of life. Brookner herself made the
comment, "If my novels contain a certain amount of grief,
it is to do with my not being what I would wish to be … more popular … socially
more graceful …. " This struggle to find a balance between inner
acceptance and social acceptance is reflected in the strongly female themes
that dominate Brookner's novels.
Her first novel, A Start in Life, was published in 1981, at the
age of 53. Since then she has published approximately a novel every year.
Brookner's second novel, The Debut (1981), received praise for
perceptive character development and the clever intermingling of narrative and
literary background. The protagonist, Ruth Weiss, a specialist in French
literature, struggles to break free from the moral obligations that restrict
her life. Weiss, hoping to emulate Balzac's female protagonist, Eugenie
Grandet, goes to Paris to study. But Weiss' dream of being rescued by a hero
fails. Weiss resigns herself to fate and returns to London to care for her
querulous, aging parents.
Kitty Maule, protagonist in Providence (1984), is another
intelligent woman disillusioned by the discrepancies between literature and
reality. When Maule's affair with a colleague fails to earn his love, her
yearnings for love and social acceptance into the British social milieu which
he represents remain unfulfilled.
In Hotel du Lac (1984) Brookner uses melancholy wit, sharp
observations, and ironically misdirected passions to relate another quiet
victory of a lonely woman over emotional predators. The novel won England's
prestigious Booker Prize, the highest honor bestowed on books of fiction. The
main character of Hotel du Lac is middle-aged Edith Hope, best-selling
author of romance novels. She is an industrious woman with literary
sensibilities, trapped in doomed romantic yearnings. Single and financially
independent, Hope leads a wellordered life that includes a socially desirable
but boring fiance, whom she mocks; monthly trysts with her married love; and
regular lunches with her best friend. Hope's deliberate avoidance of her own
wedding transgresses the firm but unwritten conventions of her society. She
becomes a social and emotional outcast, exiled to the secluded Hotel du Lac.
Hope views the other women residing at the hotel as social misfits. When
the only male guest at the hotel, Mr. Neville, accuses Hope of living a
wretched life because she is single, her sense of self-worth is further
diminished. She is tempted by the thought that if she accepts a marriage of
convenience with Neville she will regain her position in society. Although Hope
rejects his proposal, Neville's philosophy towards life causes Hope to
reevaluate her own understanding of femininity, sex, and motherhood. By the end
of the novel, Hope has come to a new acceptance of what she wants from life and
returns to London and her married lover.
In Family and Friends (1985), the focus is not on a solitary
woman but on a large Jewish-European family. Brookner explores the familial
bonds of dependence that create a network of enduring and complex emotional
relationships. Her prose style is tightly controlled and intelligent.
A Misalliance (1986) returns to familiar Brookner territory, the world of a
professionally acclaimed woman who views herself as a failure. In Brookner's
earlier novels, literature provided the novel's witty counterpoint. In A
Misalliance, Brookner calls upon her own world of art history to enrich the
narrative.
Her most recent non-fiction book is Romanticism and Its Discontents
(2000), and her most recent novel is Leaving Home
(2005).
Brookner is highly regarded as a stylist. Her fiction, which has been
heavily influenced by her own life experiences, explores themes of isolation,
emotional loss and difficulties associated with fitting into English society.
Her novels typically depict intellectual, middle-class women, who suffer
isolation, emotional loss and disappointments in love. Many of Brookner's
characters are the children of European immigrants who experience difficulties
with fitting into English life; a number of characters appear to be of Jewish
descent.
Brookner's observant stories about British society have been compared to
the works of Henry James and Jane Austen, while the wry isolation and secretive
passions of her heroines are reminiscent of stories written by the Emily and
Charlotte Brontë.
Bibliography
Ingres Purnell, 1965
Watteau Hamlyn, 1967
The Genius of the Future - Studies in French Art
Criticism: Diderot, Stendhal, Baudelaire, Zola, the Brothers Goncourt, Huysmans Phaidon, 1971
Greuze: The Rise and Fall of an Eighteenth-Century
Phenomenon Elek, 1972
Jacques-Louis David, a Personal Interpretation:
Lecture on Aspects of Art Oxford University
Press/British Academy, 1974
Jacques-Louis David Chatto & Windus, 1980
A Start in Life Cape, 1981
Providence Cape, 1982
Look at Me Cape, 1983
Hotel du Lac Cape, 1984
Family and Friends Cape, 1985
A Misalliance Cape, 1986
A Friend from England Cape, 1987
Latecomers Cape, 1988
Lewis Percy Cape, 1989
Brief Lives Cape, 1990
A Closed Eye Cape, 1991
Fraud Cape, 1992
A Family Romance Cape, 1993
A Private View Cape, 1994
Incidents in the Rue Laugier Cape, 1995
Altered States Cape, 1996
Soundings Harvill, 1997
Visitors Cape, 1997
Falling Slowly Viking, 1998
Undue Influence Viking, 1999
Romanticism and Its Discontents Viking, 2000
The Bay of Angels Viking, 2001
The Next Big Thing Viking, 2002
The Rules of Engagement Viking, 2003
Leaving Home Viking, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Brookner#cite_note-1
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