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Hotel Du Lac [Paperback]

Anita Brookner
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)

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Book Description

October 3, 1995
In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Why love?" It tells the story of Edith Hope, who writes romance novels under a psudonym. When her life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, however, Edith flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to resore her to her senses.

But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love's casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Edith Hope (a.k.a. romance author Veronica Wilde) has been banished by her friends to a stately hotel in Switzerland. During her stay she befriends some of the other guests, each of whom has his or her own tale. Edith struggles to come to terms with her career and love--the lack, the benefits, and the meaning thereof.

Review

"Brookner's most absorbing novel...wryly realistic...graceful and attractive." ?Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review

"Impeccably written and suffused with pleasing wit." ?Newsweek

"Distinctive, spellbinding...elegant but passionate, funny but oddly earnest.... Novels like hers are why we read novels." ?Christian Science Monitor

"A remarkable novel...Anita Brookner's best." ?Victoria Glendinning, The Sunday Times (London)

Product Details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Contemporaries Ed edition (October 3, 1995)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0679759328
  • ISBN-13: 978-0679759324
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
52 of 57 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars a gem September 19, 2000
Format:Paperback
Hotel du Lac is Anita Brookner at her best (recognizing that she's a writer who either draws you into her spell or doesn't.) In this novel she held me spellbound. A young woman has been sent by well-meaning friends to respectable Swiss lakeside hotel, elegant and restfully dull, to get over a disastrous love affair. But as in all of Anita Brookner's novels, there are deep layers to apparent dullness, and the traquillity of the hotel's atmosphere and the predictability of its guests is only apparent.

The melancholy yet lovely coming of autumn on the shores of the lake is as much an integral part of the story as the heroine's lonely and reflective voice. The other guests at the hotel frame Edith's awareness and become major catalysts of the book's plot. The sadness of the events Edith reveals to the reader is always balanced by her deliciously honest irony toward herself--her awareness that she has chosen her destiny. The ending is remarkable.

I read Hotel du Lac when it was first published and again recently. It's even better on re-reading, richer and deeper, proving itself a contemporary classic. Anita Brookner has a voice that's unique, original, and, certainly in this book, perfect.

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A Woman's Illusions Revealed... September 25, 2002
Format:Paperback
Within the exquisitely refined prose of Hotel du Lac, British novelist Anita Brookner illuminates the quest of the human soul through the journey of one apparently meek, middle-aged writer of romance.

Encouraged to take some time away in order to come to her senses after committing a rather glaring social faux pas (which just so happens to be a manifestation of genuine truth), Edith Hope sees little to be gained from her exile. Yet, whether enveloped within the solitude of her dreary room or lingering within the company of the hotel's curiously assembled guests, this unassuming heroine finds herself gleaning perspective into the nuances of romantic entanglements while, at the same time, acquiring heart-wrenching insight into the ways of the world.

The subtlety with which Brookner so gracefully propels the tale, without question, serves to intensify the profundity and depth of the work upon its conclusion. Indeed, a moment arrives in which the reader holds within her hands not merely an engaging work of contemporary fiction, but a mirror within which she may discover her own illusions revealed.

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The subtleties of the discerning heart January 13, 2005
Format:Paperback
Anita Brookner is a writer of enormous intelligence and subtlety. She is a writer who chronicles the small motions of the heart in expectation and disappointment. She writes usually with a kind of fine irony and her characters rarely escape untouched by careful criticism. In this novel still thought to be her best Edith Hope the protagonist a romance- writer who has walked out of her own wedding and is carrying on a passionate( from her side) affair with a married man escapes to a Swiss vacation resort. There she encounters other lives caught in the desperations of love, and there too she comes to meet the one who will be something like her rescuer, the decent Neville who she will commit herself to a loveless marriage too. With Brookner the heart of the story is not in the major movements of the plot but with the line- by- line perceptions which mark out an extremely intelligent observer of the heart's minor motions. Disappointment and learning to live with a life far less than one has hoped are major Brookner themes. She gives the reader that consolation of knowing that a certain kind of quiet suffering is not theirs alone.

I myself have found that reading a few Brookner novels has been enough, but I know one faithful reader of Brookner who continues to see her as the best diagnostician of the ailing human heart writing novels today.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Hotel du Lac
Enjoyed reading it. I love reading Anita Brookner.
Unusual ending - loved that too.
Beautiful scenery descriptions.
Enjoyable, no pretensions read
Published 1 month ago by adina gottesman
3.0 out of 5 stars Just okay
This was read by a character in another book I read that liked a lot
so decided to give it a try. Well-written, but all the characters seem
so shallow.
Published 1 month ago by wickitwitch
5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down
This book was the subject of review at our church. I found the story very interesting and thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Published 1 month ago by Petal
5.0 out of 5 stars Hotel du Lac
This is a subtle, nuanced account of who we see each other, how we understand our position with others. Edith is a remarkable character. Read more
Published 3 months ago by claudia j kennedy
5.0 out of 5 stars The life that unseen changes...
Anita Brookner is the master of the quiet moment, of the invisible psychological turning-points upon which the course of entire lives depend and change forever. Read more
Published 3 months ago by meeah
5.0 out of 5 stars Hotel du Lac - a nice and leisurely read without too much tension or...
I really enjoyed this book, partly because I could identify with the main female character though my life circumstances are not particularly similar. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Ursula McSweeney
3.0 out of 5 stars All mood, no action, but realistic
This book feels like a throwback to Stendhal or someone like that who basically painted a mood and scene and filled it with gentle internal dialogue. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Avid Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Supremely elegant
A delightful story and master class in deliciously elegant prose. I look forward to reading more books by this author.
Published 5 months ago by nic1800
5.0 out of 5 stars A thoughtful book
I really enjoyed this book. It provoked me to think about human nature more as well as how interactions with others need to be recognized in a more conscientious way. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Carolyn Havlin-Cryer
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent.
She writes beautifully. Couldn't put it down. Will read all her books. The last couple of pages resonate after you put it down .
Published 10 months ago by ayesha
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