Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner
First published 1984.
The shortest Booker book I've read so far, Hotel du Lac takes place almost entirely in the titular hotel, located in a small town in Switzerland. The author Edith Hope, who writes Romance novels under the pen-name Vanessa Wilde, has come to the hotel to finish her latest book and to have some distance from a traumatic decision she has made back home. While at the hotel she makes the acquaintance of the few other hotel guests, most prominently Mrs Pusey and her adult daughter Jennifer - who seem almost to embody opulence and wealth - and Monica, a quieter woman with a loud dog that is suffering from an eating disorder. She also strikes up a friendship, and possibly more, with Phillip Neville, a fairly loosely-moralled man who has come to the hotel after his wife has run away with another man. Back in London, Edith has been seeing a married man, David Simmonds, and continues to write to him throughout the novel, letting him (and us) know a little more about her thoughts towards those around her, and also how much she is still wrestling with her attraction to him.
In some ways, not a lot happens in Hotel du Lac. And in some ways, that is the point. Edith is a woman wracked with indecision, and her time at the hotel may force her to make a decision regarding her future, yet there is no guarantee that it will be a decision that will bring her any more happiness than she currently has.
The book has a melancholic feel that reflects Edith's state of mind, and this works for the story overall. It is a 'minor' Booker book, and its morality is certainly not one I support, but it is effective in what it sets out to do: painting a sad, and at times sadly amusing, portrait of some sad individuals and the choices they make.
Now I need something lighter again!
Completed 18 April 2022.
(Bookerworm)
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