Customer Reviews

Family and Friends

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If this novel were a person, one would find it hard to get to know, and harder to come to love. It has a peculiarly distant and reserved quality to it, as if it were shy and did not want anyone to approach too closely for observation. As is often the case with people, however, the timid and withdrawn character of this novel do not indicate shallowness, but rather a complex and interesting nature for some reason fearful of easy discovery. "Family and Friends", unlike other Brookner stories, takes place in the somewhat remote past. Its author has chosen a decidedly abstracted narrative style, hard to catch hold of at first, perhaps, but one which gradually earns for itself a fascination uniquely its own. As is usual with Brookner, the story told is first rate, the characters nearly as memorable as one's first heartstopping brush with love. Her themes? The uphill ascent of an adult life; escape as a watermelon rind of light on a sometimes graspable horizon; the complexity of family life as puzzle within puzzle. Though the story imbedded in the pages of "Family and Friends" may at first seem as inaccessible as the images trapped inside an old sepia photograph, try persistence. There is a terrific tale here, ready, if you are, to leap into life.

This is my first Anita Brookner book and I have complex feelings about this book. It is very depressing and written in such an arid style that I find myself flipping to the back to see how much further I have left to read. Normally, I love reading books about families and their "issues" but this family is so normal that I find myself wondering what their issues were. I ended this book with a dejected feeling ~~ is that all to this book? I will read another Brookner book before I give up on her.

Sofka is the matritach of the family, with oldest irresponsible and shameless flirt, Frederick. Then there is Mimi, the perfect and docile daughter. Betty is the irrepressible youngest daughter who decides to run off to Paris to live flamboyantly. Then there is stern Alfred who was brought up to run the family's finances since Frederick couldn't be counted on to be responsible. And this book is about their lives ~~ how they attempt to leave behind their upbringing. Mimi and Alfred remain behind to devote themselves to their mother while Betty and Frederick took off for places unknown to do what they want to do. And in the end, they remain just as estranged from their family and mother just as they've always been. However, Sofka devotes her thoughts and energy to those two and labels them as her favorite. Even at the end ~~ she remained devoted to her eldest son and youngest daughter, though Mimi and Alfred spent their entire lives taking care of Sofka.

This book is a disturbing look into familial relations and of expectations that didn't measure up. It is an interesting book ~~ but written with such a dry style that I find myself often putting it aside. It is not the worst book I've ever read ~~ but it's not the best. It's great for English literature enthusiasts ~~ but not for others.

4-8-03

I've read most of Ms.Brookners books and found this one to be typical of her great writing skills.This may have been the best one I've read-just so poignant I couldn't put it down.I'm sure I'll read it again.

What makes the writing of Anita Brookner so good?
The first thing is the precise beauty of her language. The second, is her remarkable insight into human life and relationships. Here she traces a family history, a widowed matriarch and four children. This is the world of cultured Central European exiles who have made a new home in Great Britain. It is a family of the most assimilated kind of Jews imaginable, bound together not by religion but by family history and tradition.
In tracing the family history Brookner reveals how much life involves the pursuit of dreams and illusions, contradicted time and again by unexpected realities.
Reading a Brookner book is being in the company of a refined intelligence whose understanding of life continually enriches one's own.

In this novel Mrs Brookner portrays the Dorn family. The head of the family, Mr Dorn, died sometime ago but there is Sofka the mother who is contemplating a photo album in which there are pictures of her children's weddings. She is a languid woman with few friends and deeply devoted to the members of her family. She constantly worries what will happen to the lives of her four children, how they will deal with the world and the world with them. There are two daughters, Mireille - Mimi - and Babette - Betty. The former is to marry Mr Lautner, the man who practically runs the family factory in London, quite late in life and the latter hurriedly marries Max Markus in Paris, the son of a film producer and they subsequently move to Beverly Hills. Sofka's elder son Frederick, a sympathetic but far from hard-working man finds his way into the hotel business on the Italian Riviera by marrying Evie. The younger son Alfred on the other hand is an austere man who is sternly devoted to the family business at the expense of his private life.
The characters are well drawn although the plot does not offer much in terms of excitement or suspense. In this sense it is a true family and friends novel: people meeting, sons and daughters making their way into the world and a mother affectionately remembering her children's youth.