What can I say? No one writes into the marrow of relationships (familial and partnerships) in under 250 pages quite like Anita Brookner. She is so masterful at drilling into the experience of her characters, that she demands to be read slowly.
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source: BBC
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In Incidents in the Rue Laugier, Brookner describes so vividly and emotionally the story of what happens when a young, inexperienced woman goes into the world. Maud seeks independence from her stifling mother, while actually having no one to turn to for any guidance. This spells disaster as Tyler can sense her naiveté. As a man who preys on young women's inexperience, he says and does all the right things for Maud to become ensnared with him.
You can guess what all happens next. Interestingly, THIS isn't the part of the story that sent me reeling. It's Tyler's frenemy- Edward whose character depiction strikes me the most.
Edward is outwardly reliable, definitely not a rake, and seemingly compassionate. What Edward tasks himself with later is seen as less chivalrous, and more self-serving. His insistence on propriety at the expense of his own happiness becomes a weighted blanket in his relationship.
We then see an extreme role reversal. He begins to feel trapped. Maud begins to appreciate that continuity that a husband and her own life can bring- especially when juxtaposed with her life back home with her mother.
This novel explores family, responsibility, connection, honesty, women's dependence, self-esteem, duty, grief, love, and acceptance in a way that only Anita Brookner can do.
Brookner condenses stories down to their most important factors and allows the reader to enter safely into the deepest recesses of the hearts and minds of her characters. You can't help but see yourself in most of them, and walk about pondering how/what you would do in the situations she presents on the page.
Quotes from the novel:
But recently I have found myself repeating some of my mother's attitudes- reading, sighing, going to bed early- and I began to wish for clarification.
Like my father I found her apparent serenity irritating, yet I have reached the age when a woman begins to perceive that she is growing into the person whom she least plans to resemble: her mother.
Maud simply wanted to live in Paris, with or without a husband, preferably without. While careful not to let her thoughts show on her severe and slightly disdainful golden face, Maud had a secret desire to escape all forms of control. That was her abiding wish.
Loneliness, he felt, was sometimes the price one paid for integrity.
Tyler had saddled himself with this girl, Maud, for no other reason that that he was used to being accompanied by a submissive female presence.
Please do yourself a favor if you haven't already and read Incidents in the Rue Laugier.
