Book: Hotel du Lac
Author: Anita Brookner
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 1/2 Stars
Read for a book club in January.
Edith Hope, a writer of romantic stories, and stubbornly single, has been exiled to the Hotel du Lac for embarrassing herself in front of her friends.
We don’t yet know what she has done, but we do know her thoughts as she arrives at the Swiss hotel.
There, she meets a colourful cast of characters as she tries to finish her current manuscript.
During her stay, she meets Mr. Neville, and with him gains an opportunity to escape spinsterhood and its myriad humiliations.
This is a story about societal expectations and the pressures they exert, most of all on women.
What we see at the Hotel du Lac is an examination of many different unmarried women, and their various eccentricities.
Edith struggles to find a place and an identity for herself within these.
What is she supposed to be? Who is she supposed to be?
The men in the story, and therefore in Edith’s life: David, Geoffrey Long and Philip Neville add their own colour to Edith’s journey of self-exploration.
Can she define herself and find her own space outside of those the range of unmarried women and eligible men offer?
Where does she go from here?
This is sharply written and quite funny at moments. It is not a long read but not an exceptionally fast one.
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