Hunger art: the novels of Anita Brookner

Twentieth Century Literature, Spring, 1995 by Ann Fisher-Wirth

The characteristic maneuver of Brookner's heroines is to attempt to replace nothing with something, in imitation of the ones they feel to be lucky, hares instead of tortoises in the race of life (Hotel 27-28). This maneuver, however, is characteristically foiled; hopes are destroyed, illusions shattered, and instead of access to the "hot garden" time brings only desolation. Especially in the earlier novels, the most humiliating nightmares prove to be true. Ruth Weiss in The Debut must finally align herself not with her childhood nursemaid's promise, "Cinderella shall go to the ball," but with the fear of Balzac's Eugenie Grandet, "Je suis trop laide, il ne fera pas attention a moi" (9). Frances Hinton in Look at Me musters the courage to attempt to seduce James Anstey, but he leaps out of bed, telling her, "Not with you, Frances. Not with you" (127). And in A Friend from England, Rachel Kennedy must face the scorn with which Heather, whom she has guided and patronized, views her. Meek, childish Heather turns out to have the courage to find love, whereas Rachel, who has prided herself on her wise sophistication, must conclude that she has utterly failed because she has been "guilty of an error" (203). She finally learns, "It was not Heather who was endangered, but myself. ... The fact of the matter was that the wonders of this earth suddenly meant nothing to me. Without a face opposite mine the world was empty; without another voice it was silent" (203-04).

A Friend from England is one of Brookner's most painful novels, constituting perhaps her most extreme undoing of narrative authority and humiliation of the narrator. It is also one of her most courageous novels, as in it she most thoroughly allows her protagonist to reveal and condemn herself in her own words. "I lacked the information," Kitty Maule thinks to herself at the end of Providence in her moment of mortification (182). But the narrative voice keeps its distance, by and large, confining itself to the invulnerable third person. Nor, given Maurice Bishop's deceitfulnes, is Kitty too much to blame for misinterpreting his intentions. She may be desolate at the end of Providence, but she is not shamed; no one but she knows of her mistake, and she is able to hide her chagrin at discovering Maurice's betrayal.

Like Kitty, Frances Hinton of Look at Me suffers a moment of exquisite sexual humiliation, when she discovers -- also at a dinner party -- that her lover James is passionately involved with Maria, and that she herself has been set up by her voyeuristic friends Nick and Alix Fraser to be betrayed. But again, like Kitty, she manages to conceal her anguish; she is hurt, but no one sees it. She even manages a counterattack, remarking to Alix that France's friend Olivia is only deformed in body, implying of course that the beautiful Alix is deformed in mind. But this is small comfort, given the blame Frances knows she must level against herself for forteiting James's love. She has desired to keep their relationship pure, in a dimly realized wish to re-enact childhood; now, she realizes, she has made him "accessible to others but not to me. ... It seemed to me that I, rather than he, has brought this about, and my despair was extreme. For now that I knew that I loved him, it was his whole life that I loved. And I would never know that Life" (183).