Incidents in the Rue Laugier [Paperback]

Anita Brookner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 14, 1997

Maud Gonthier yearns for an escape from the cocoon of the bourgeois modesty. The splendid, caddish David Tyler appears to offer one. In this stylish, deeply knowing novel by the author of Hotel du Lac, Maud's seduction creates a chemistry of longing, sensuality, and betrayal--with a surprising climax. 240 pp.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Six cryptic journal jottings in her French-born mother's hand drive Maffy, initially the narrator of Brookner's (Dolly) potently crafted novel, to fabricate Maud Gonthier Harrison's single ardent girlhood affair. Having reproduced the mysterious inscription in Maud's notebook ("Dames Blanches. La Gaillardier. Place des Ternes. Sang. Edward.") and a scrap of Proust, Maffy teasingly begs the reader, "Please accept me as an unreliable narrator," then vanishes, to appear only "inadvertently" in the tale that follows. Now in a third-person voice, Maud's story takes on a pulsating reality, involving her with charismatic "scoundrel" David Tyler and his friend since Cambridge, Edward Harrison?the man Maud finally marries. The triangle, erotic and latently homoerotic, forms during a sensual, heat-drenched season of the 1950s in the French countryside; then the three drift to a borrowed house on Paris's rue Laugier. Lost in love's delirium, Maud sees Tyler as an "Apollo," a careless divinity who descends to sport with her and Edward, while emotionally damaging them forever. With delicate brilliance, Brookner probes Maud's and Edward's early family lives (Tyler, in contrast, appears from nowhere, born of mythically rich parents) to reveal how they become so entrapped. Like other Brookner heroines, Maud has a controlling mother whose tie with her is as intricately knotty as Maud's relationship is with the men. Edward, inflamed by Maud because of Tyler, grasps his own bewildering role as voyeuristic, feminine, childlike, servile and protective. With Tyler's withdrawal, Maud and Edward grow resignedly chill as they refashion their lives and tilt their relationship into a new imbalance, while the reader turns pages compulsively for a dazzling read in which every sentence seems clairvoyant.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Like the 18th-century French paintings that Brookner studied as a noted art historian, her novels offer many quiet pleasures: elegant, polished prose and delicate, yet morally complex, portraits of human relationships. In her 16th work of fiction, Brookner (A Private View, LJ 2/1/95), examines the consequences of sexual passion and betrayal. When reserved 18-year-old Maud Gonthier, a poor relation from Dijon, arrives at her aunt's country home for her usual summer holiday, she falls passionately in love with David Tyler, a handsome English womanizer. The affair continues in Paris in a borrowed apartment on the Rue Laugier; Tyler soon disappears and his friend Edward is left to pick up the pieces, with quietly devastating results. While writing incisively, Brookner breaks no new literary ground, rehashing her old theme of thwarted, empty lives. One longs to shout "Do something!" to her characters, passively resigned to their bleak fates.
-?Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (January 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679765123
• ISBN-13: 978-0679765127
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #524,821 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A human tragedy., May 10, 2001

By 

Tattie Scone (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Incidents in the Rue Laugier (Paperback)

This novel was truly depressing. It was all about the childhood dreams of the two main characters, Maud and Edward, and how their small dreams never came to fruition. Throughout the book the characters strive for and constantly fall short of what they desire, which in both cases is freedom and love. Neither can relate to the other which leaves them both emotionally stunted and unable to fully enjoy what should be a good life together. One of the biggest problems I had with the book was the timescale. It seemed to me that the dates given really didn't match with the attitudes or style of living described in the book. I fully believed that the book was taking place around the early 20th century and was shocked when it finally declared itself to be set in 1971. All in all this is not a bad book, although I myself did not really care for it. It is well written and the story is interesting, although depressing and tragic. Incidents in the Rue Laugier seems to me to be a bitter book written about lives lived in dissatisfaction and regret. By the end of this book, I have to admit that I was really depressed and disliked the characters intensely. I could not empathise with them at all. However, by the fact that it left me sad and angry it is clear that it certainly made an emotional impact on me.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Searingly Intense Love Story, April 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Incidents in the Rue Laugier (Paperback)

Few writers ever attain the depth of character and emotion so succinctly captured by Anita Brookner. Her characters beckon us to read on for as we examine their lives, we find we cannot cannot help but be moved to investigate the deepest feelings and motivations in our own lives as well. Within the novel,Brookner herself becomes philosopher as she wonders about the mystery of our emotional desires and why the events of our lives turn out the way they do. Brookner captivates the reader with her own special magic; with prose that seems almost poetic and with characters so beautifully drawn they are unforgettable.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incidents in the Rue Laugier, August 5, 2001

By 

Rekha Yadav (Riverside,CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Incidents in the Rue Laugier (Paperback)

For fans of Anita Brookner, this one is almost the best. Did not find it depressing at all, on the contrary. The elegance and persuasiveness of the language is sheer pleasure, not a single false note in the characters. Ms. Brookner is a genius, ranks up there with Virginia Woolf.