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The Debut

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[This book was originally published in Britain as A START IN LIFE, a title whose irony is especially poignant. I am not sure whether there are other alterations between the two texts as well. The review below is based on the British version.]

"Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature." So begins the first of the many novels that Anita Brookner would publish virtually annually between 1982 and the present. It has all the hallmarks of her later work -- the protagonist an educated woman no longer in her first youth, the story a brush with romance, the mood bitter-sweet, and the style impeccable -- and yet it is distinctly different from most of those that follow -- funnier for one thing, and focusing on several characters rather than just one.

Ruth Weiss, an expert on Balzac, teaches French Literature at London University. She leads a quiet academic life where none of her colleagues would be so distasteful as to pry into her personal existence as a woman, and yet she has one -- or at least has had one. After the opening chapter, the novel plunges back in time to when Ruth, the only child of a Jewish book-dealer and an English comedy actress, is a promising high school student. It follows her as she goes to London University as an undergraduate, and then to Paris to pursue doctoral research. It shows her struggles to get out from under her demanding but useless parents -- the actress mother no longer able to get roles, the father prematurely retired. It reveals her encounters with romance, running the gamut from abject failure to sensible accommodation. One can sympathize with Ruth, cheer for her, weep with her, but fortunately also laugh with her. Brookner's humor is understated, but it enlivens almost every page.

I must admit to personal reasons for liking this book; this used to be my own world. Ruth is of my generation; her career is remarkably similar to that of my first wife; and I myself did graduate study in Paris, when I was briefly a student of Professor Brookner's in her other career as an art historian. There is one glimpse of this in the book, when Ruth visits the Louvre and Brookner distills her impressions into a single magnificent paragraph; here is one sentence: "She paid a duty visit to the early-nineteenth-century galleries and was bemused, as always, by the sheer size of everything: giant figures enmeshed with one another, toiling towards rescue after shipwreck, towards liberty after oppression, towards Paris after Moscow; never would they find peace or be reconciled to their proper dimensions." It is a perfect example of Brookner's measured style, her spot-on descriptions (in this case of Géricault, Delacroix, and Gros), and her own twist of humor at the end.

Anita Brookner and Ruth Weiss might well be amused by such Romantic excesses, for neither of them ever venture beyond their proper dimensions; that is their charm. But there are places in this early novel when the secondary characters -- the parents and the housekeeper -- verge on tragicomic melodrama. In her later novels, Brookner would rein this in, achieving an autumnal watercolor perfection in her Booker Prizewinning HOTEL DU LAC, or a poised tristesse when she revisits a theme similar to this one in the beautiful LEAVING HOME. But this first fictional outing has an exuberance all of its own, which makes it an ideal introduction to Brookner's tragicomic genius.

I first came by Anita Brookner via her Booker Prize winning novel, Hotel Du Lac; purchased in my favorite bookstore in Paris, which is the setting for part of this novel. I'm sure some might debate the technical merits of this one against her award winner, but I found them both quite enjoyable and insightful; the differentiation I'll leave to the literary specialists.

Speaking of which, the protagonist, Dr Ruth Weiss, is a Professor and literary specialist on Honoré de Balzac. The first chapter depicts her in that mid-life role, but the vast majority of the book concerns how she assumed that role, her "debut" into the adult world, as she managed to shake off the influences of a highly dysfunctional family situation, and found solace in literature. Brookner introduces one of the central themes early, in the form of non-translated French, a quote from Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet." Like many other English writers of a certain class, she assumes that her readers understand the language of the diplomatic world (well, at least of the 18th Century). And if you'll excuse my French, as it were, she states the fear of many a woman who worries that her wit, intelligence and character just might not be enough for him; that the deciding factor will be her physical beauty.

Ruth's mother, Helen, is an actress passed her prime, endlessly reminiscing of her triumphs, on stage, and sometimes in bed, and now enveloped in hypochondria. Her father, George, used to own and run a bookstore, but has now taken to some modest philandering, rationalized since it is not fully consummated. There is the live-in "housekeeper" of sorts, Mrs. Cutler, who provides a useful foil. Ruth does escape to Paris, to continue her work on Balzac, and is taken advantage of by various so-called friends. Still, she struggles, maintains her dignity, and comes of age, but there is the constant vortex of doom, her family situation, and their needs, that pull her back to England.

Brookner delightfully re-packages an aphorism by Oscar Wilde: "Work, she thought, is a paradox; it is the sort of thing people do out of sheer inability to do anything else. Work is the chosen avocation of people who have no other calls on their time." The author's core strengths (as they say in business) are observations on the male-female relationships. Consider: "She studied the couple closely, as if they were an unknown species. They were, in fact, an unknown species. They were happy." Or, "Hugh also took Ruth back to her room one day and started to make love to her; she was so amazed that she forgot all the routine objections." Throughout the novel, Ruth receives many an unsolicited "improvement" comment from the more worldly-wise Anthea. Finally, Ruth asks her, concerning those aforementioned relationships: "Is it all a game, then?" Anthea looked sadly back. "Only if you win," was her reply. "If you lose, it's far more serious." Finally, in terms of quotes, Brookner might be considered a traitor, at least to her gender, for this one: "Some women take advantage. Once they're married, and they've got a good husband, they think they can do what they like. And if they take him for granted"- she paused significantly-"they just don't bother any more."

Overall, Brookner weaves an excellent story, erudite, well-placed, and informed on the human condition. The author's style is a rare mixture of understated British humor surrounding a tale that goes deep into the heart of sadness. A marvelous 5-star read that has pushed me to read Eugénie Grandet, if not even more of Balzac.

The story never reveals if Helen is an only child, but her behavior suggests it. George is an only child, and when two narcissistic personalities collide, it is the children that suffer. Ruth understands early on that she is just another household piece to her parent's eyes. She takes it remarkably well, although I would never be able to forgive her parents' selfishness.

Although the ending, what refers to Roddy, is quite abrupt and should have been worked out more, I found this a very satisfying novel. I did not enjoy Hotel du Lac, so this was a wonderful surprise.

For a novel of only 192 pages, THE DEBUT is surprisingly multi-faceted and complex (though it reads effortlessly). For an author's debut novel, it is astonishingly good.

The beginning and end of the novel - the front and back covers of it, as it were - feature Ruth Weiss as she is now: forty, an academic, and an authority on Honoré de Balzac. She appears to be a stereotypical character of academia - one of those colorless and seemingly sexless female scholars, married to her discipline but in real life destined to spinsterhood. However, the bulk of the novel (pages 11 to 191) provides the back-story; it tells of how Ruth came into the role in life she now occupies. It turns out that she too has lived and loved. One lesson might well be: Don't judge a book by its cover.

As things happened, much of her life was consumed by her parents. Both were incredibly self-centered, and their self-absorption sucked the life out of one another and, nearly, Ruth as well. Near the end of the novel, after her parents' follies and infirmities have pulled Ruth back to drab London from the life-as-an-assured-single-girl she was forging for herself in Paris, Ruth sighs: "I can't nurse them through this. It's about time they behaved like adults." But then author Brookner comments sardonically: "Ruth still believed that adults adhered to a superior standard of behavior." That is another lesson: Many (most?) adults are self-centered buffoons.

That lesson is imparted over and over in this novel of understated but acerbic wit. The "sly, detached humor" of Anita Brookner has often been compared to that of Barbara Pym, but the humor of THE DEBUT is more caustic, more barbed than that of Pym's. It reminds me instead of Kingsley Amis. Further, there is a sober and bittersweet dimension to THE DEBUT and the one other novel of Brookner's ("Hotel du Lac") that I have read. She is a novelist of considerable merit - easy to read but not easy to forget. I will return for more.

I loved this book. As someone who also wonders how books we read affect our perceptions of ourselves and the world, I thought Brookner did a wonderful job illustrating this idea. The novel is beautifully written; the words will resonate in your mind as you this. This is not a stuffy British text at all. I highly recommend it.