Brief Lives [Paperback]

Anita Brookner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1992

With this novel, Booker Prize-winning author Anita Brookner confirms her reputation as an unparalleled observer of social nuance and deeply felt longings. Brief Lives chronicles an unlikely friendship: that between the flamboyant, monstrously egocentric Julia and the modest, self-effacing Fay, who is at once fascinated and appalled by Julia's excesses. Thrust together by their husbands' business partnership -- and by a guilty secret -- Julia and Fay develop an intense bond that is nonetheless something less than intimacy, a relationship in which we see our own uneasy compromises, not only with other people, but with life itself.

Editorial Reviews

From 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.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

British novelist Brookner has written several novels, including the Booker prize winner, Hotel du Lac ( LJ 2/15/85). Her new novel covers the nearly 40 years of intertwining lives of two dissimilar, incompatible women. Flamboyant, selfish Julia was once a glamorous actress. Fay arranges her life around men--first her father, then her husband, then her lover--and eventually her friend, none of them her ideal; finally, she is alone. Like Brookner's other novels, Brief Lives focuses on the loneliness of good, conventional women who fail to achieve their ideal relationship and who cannot live happily alone. Brookner's calm, delicate, elegant prose is a pleasure to read. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/91.
-Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 7, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679737332
• ISBN-13: 978-0679737339
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.2 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,158,280 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sad tale of an unfulfilled life, November 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Brief Lives (Paperback)

I was warned before I started on "Brief Lives" that in Anita Brookner's novels, nothing much ever happens. I guess I was prepared for the brooding pleasure that one might expect to derive from reading a sad contemplative piece but the experience totally surpassed my expectations. Brookner's facility with words is simply masterful. Her writing is precise, unpretentious, honest and true. Her characters are vividly drawn and always memorable. Contrary to the blurb, this novel is not about a friendship between two women. It is a tale of a thwarted and unfulfilled life, that of Fay's. Her relationship with the monstrous Julia cannot be considered a friendship by any imagination. With friends like Julia, who needs enemies ? Fay is bound to Julia only by a sense of obligation born of low self esteem and guilt pangs stemming from a midlife affair with Charlie. Julia, on the other hand, is a totally self-centred and imperious caricature of the former movie star she was and treats everybody including her husband, her household staff and her "friends" like Fay exactly the same way. There is no evidence of any valid basis for friendship between the two women, not that I can discern anyway. As seen through the eyes of Fay, the three men in Fay's life (Owen, Charlie and Alex) are all vapid and colourless characters deserving of the fate that awaits them - two of them get bumped off unexpectedly. The recurring question in the reader's mind is whether all men in Fay's world are as inherently remote emotionally as they seem or are they simply reacting to Fay's insecurity and inability to articulate her own needs. She is among the last of that dying breed of women from the old world who depend on their menfolk for self definition. She realises in time (but more from fortituous events than from the dawn of self enlightenment) the futility of this condition. As the men drop off like flies, she recoups a measure of resolve and dignity from within herself to lead the rest of her twilight years in a state of modest independence. Even the bullying Julia gets packed off to Spain. So the story ends on a note of hope as Fay contemplates a solitary life but this time without the people who have unconsciously conspired to make her feel undervalued. Brookner has produced a near masterpiece in this introspective study of a woman's life. Unless you're allergic to this genre of novels, I would highly recommend "Brief Lives" to all lovers of literature. It is truly a beautifully crafted piece of work.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Cautionary Tale, January 4, 2000

By 

"mgerald" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brief Lives (Paperback)

The author's name need not be displayed on the cover of this novel, so much in evidence are the standard Brooknerian themes and features: the professional invalid, whom one suspects of being desperately in need of wide open windows and a good brisk walk; the eternal cups of tea, ever being brewed in cozy kitchens as substitutes for life; the divining eye of the narrator, which eerily registers the thoughts and desires of characters without often resorting to illustrative dialogue and action. It would be difficult to like many of the characters in this novel; they are far too autistic for friendship, far too myopically bent on crashing their luxury liner selves into the shimmering icebergs of life. But in Fay Langdon we have a particularly puzzling person. On Hallowe'en she would have to go out dressed as a gigantic question mark, for her whole existence poses a problem: what happens to people who choose dedication to mediocrity instead of actively pursuing things that really matter to them? Fay spends all her years waiting for someone to come along and make her happy, and the idea never seems to occur to her that she might actually come up with meaningful activities and goals of her own. In addition to being an especially enjoyable way to pass some time, this book is also a provocative and cautionary tale. Its message? The person who settles for kissing frogs may turn into one herself, and never find that prince.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an exploration of compromise, July 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Brief Lives (Paperback)

I am a long time fan of Ms. Brookner's books. Brief Lives is a fine step in her exploration of the way people get along with one another. Her heroines are often lonely and cerebral yet never weak. I suggest this book to anyone who wants more than the danielle steele fare so prevalent these days.