ie They are NOT coming from overseas !!
BRIEF LIVES
- By Anita Brookner -
ISBN: 9780224027472
Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, London, UK
Published: 1990
Binding: HARDcover with Dustjacket 217 pages
Condition: UNread & displayed condition! HERE in MELBOURNE! A retired display
copy as illustrated!
Edition: FIRST EDITION: 1st printing
TIGHT, SCARCE HARDCOVER WITH DUSTJACKET~ IN MELBOURNE ...
WHY do ebayers buy from US?
Because you KNOW what you're getting. My close up photos are of the actual item!!
Remains UNread - it was the display copy instore . It is Tight - neat, no inscriptions or marks within. Appears as in my photos - this is the exact copy!! A nicely preserved copy - superb!
No discernible shelf wear, the interior is tight and spotlessly clean with 217 pages. THIS copy is the FIRST EDITION: First printing from 1990 - the UK publishing by Jonathan Cape Ltd, London.
SCARCE COLLECTABLE UNOPENED FIRST PRINTING of this title - this is a WONDERFUL NEW copy!!
In original brown boards with striking gold titles to the spine HARDcover binding, in publisher's glossy, illustrated(painting title "A Lady in an Interior" by Charles Holsoe) dustjacket, unclipped and which are in excellent Brand New condition.
(Stored with 2021!)
Measures approx. 9 x 6ins OR 22½ X 14½cms
SYNOPSIS ....
'I never liked her, nor did she like me; strange, then, how we managed to keep up a sort of friendship for so long.'
Fay Langdon has relinquished her singing career to marry Owen, a highly successful solicitor. At one of their dinner parties Fay meets the glamorous, self-obsessed Julia and is destined to join the handful of acolytes who provide Julia with ammunition for her merciless scorn and disapprobation.
As the years pass and Fay and Julia's lives grow empty of purpose, they are drawn together by their fear of age and isolation. Yet a mutual mistrust continues to exist between them until Fay is driven to one last heroic act.
OR
A young woman gives up a promising singing career for the sake of a brilliant match. When her husband dies tragically young, she is forced into new relationships which radically change her views.
About the Author
Anita Brookner was born in south London in 1928, the daughter of a Polish immigrant family. She trained as an art historian, and worked at the Courtauld Institute of Art until her retirement in 1988. She published her first novel, A Start in Life, in 1981 and her twenty-fourth, Strangers, in 2009. Hotel du Lac won the 1984 Booker Prize. As well as fiction, Anita Brookner has published a number of volumes of art criticism.
Anita Brookner's most notable novel, her fourth, Hotel du Lac won the Man Booker Prize in 1984. Her novel, The Next Big Thing was longlisted (alongside John Banville's, Shroud) in 2002 for the Man Booker Prize. She has published over 25 works of fiction, notably: Strangers (2009) shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Fraud (1992) and, The Rules of Engagement (2003). She was also the first female to hold a Slade Professorship of Fine Arts at Cambridge University.
Very Entertaining read!
Reviews
Publishers Weekly ... A latter-day Jane Austen, Brookner distills irony and tragedy from the essence of quiet lives. Here she reaches new heights of insight and empathy in the story of a woman whose life, while not brief in years, is emotionally stunted, circumscribed by her passive personality and the social climate of her times. The brevity of hope and ``the hopelessness of desire'' are the elegiac leitmotifs that run throughout this lucid, meticulously written story. Narrator Fay Langdon futilely seeks to recapture the ``Edenic simplicity'' of childhood, never achieving the romantic love promised in the popular songs of the '20s which she once sang on the radio. Now a ``woman of advanced years,''she looks back and reflects on her empty existence. As the compliant wife of a coldhearted workaholic lawyer who does not return her yearning for tenderness and intimacy; as the obedient friend of Julia, a monstrously snobbish, selfish woman, married to Fay's husband's business partner; and as the mistress of the latter after her husband dies, Fay has learned to serve others with humble self-effacement that masks her secret bitterness, desolation and longing. Brookner dips her pen in acid for her portrait of the poisonous Julia, and in rue for her evocation of the specter of solitary old age that Fay faces with dignity.
One of Brookner's best novels ― Penelope Lively, The Observer
Utterly absorbing . . . so great is Brookner's skill as a writer that you will find it difficult not to devour this brilliant novel at one long sitting. ― Daily Mail
A subtle and thorough exploration of the relationship between nostalgia and old age . . . Brooker [is] one of the bravest novelists around. ― Jonathan Coe, Guardian
Compression, economy and the ability to conjure up an entire personality with a few adroitly chosen words. Brief Lives is a perfect demonstration of these gifts. ― Penelope Lively, Evening Standard
Another fabulous novel by Brookner but with more heart .... I have read five of this author's books in a row and this one gave me the most pleasure and actually made me cry twice. I highly recommend it. One might thing that her incredible way of getting inside of women would put off male readers, but I am here to say it does not. She has a universal knack of drawing us all in to the characters and story. I did so love Julia's flawed and delicious character.
Masterpiece .... Anita Brookner is among the best fiction writers of our time. That said, her efforts in 'Brief Lives' feel less compelling than her norm. There is the usual brilliant prose, which is one of the joys of reading her - just to be in the company of one in such command of the English language. And it is also a treat to be respected as a reader in the nuances of realized consciousness in her primary characters, also a trademark. However, in the case of Fay Langdon, the central voice of "Brief Lives," the inner self-analysis that takes place feels 'off'. Fay is one of Brookner's stock-in-trade 'muted' personalities, set off against the more robust and colorful Julia, with whom she shares a 'like-hate' relationship. But in the case of Fay there is an episode of moral turpitude that mars her image and undermines our sympathy. We, as readers, tend not to judge Brookner's people since they are so adept and even obsessive in judging themselves. Yet In Fay's case there is a jarring disconnect in her justification of an adulterous relationship. While she expresses shame at times, her primary focus is on how this episode affects her overall life experience, as if it were less a moral infraction than an opportunity she could not avoid. Passivity in her case is not just a wearisome flaw, but an enabler of wrong doing. This rationalization breaks the spell that Brookner relies upon to keep her reader in sympathy - or at least intimately engaged - with the inner life of her protagonist. And since the verisimilitude of the narrative depends upon the acceptance of this connection, the break with it is a serious flaw in the overall effect of the tale.
More generally, I find Brooker's novels to be an oasis in the arid of modern fiction. This is because of the journey we take that is so rare and which, though seemingly about restricted and repressed human beings, is actually about the way words can mount layers of meaning upon meaning, creating a complex multi-hued tapestry of the human condition. In this regard it is fair to say that - like Winston Churchill - she weaponises the English language. It is a wondrous joy to experience such a sustained and reliable mental realm, simply to be in her company. That said, it has often perplexed me why this writer is so preoccupied with illness and most particularly with the onset of old age, remarking in exacting detail the loss of beauty, identity, and purpose. These passages feel overwritten, clouding the skies above her brightly defined characters with gratuitous doom and gloom.
Superb author ... As with all Anita Brookner's books very descriptive and can be said to be rather depressing. Well I love her and although nothing quite happens you cannot put it down as Anita Brookner draws you in on her characters.
A perfect Brookner, among her very best. ..... 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.
Grab a gin & tonic first!! ... Anyone over fifty would be wise to have a stiff drink before starting this book - preferably a gin and tonic because that is what everyone in the book is drinking. The author has a brilliant talent for describing in unflinching detail what it is to grow old in the company of widows and unmarried women. A very painful read.
A thoughtful book.... An ageing woman, hearing of the death of an acquaintance, looks back at her own unsatisfactory life and forward from a lonely present to a probably lonely future. Painfully accurate in its minute portrayal of Fay’s fluctuating moods and thoughts, with many wonderful character studies, this is an engrossing account of an unassertive female life in the pre-internet world. I often wanted to shake Fay, but I never lost interest in her. I wonder how I would have managed growing old on my own then. A little better, I hope! It strained credibility that she continued to visit the odious Julia, when both had become widows. I’m sure I would have stopped going, withheld the favours Julia assumed as her due, expanded my interests and activities, sought out healthier companionship.
Magnificent author .... With her unique perception, Anita Brookner reveals the lives of two women governed by alliances forged long ago.
Marvellous Reading!
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