Rating: 
Summary: An Entertaining Entree
Review: Faithful devotees of Anita Brookner will want to return again and again to the groundbreaking "Hotel du Lac" as to a kind of sacred literary scripture. This book, with which its creator cast her authorial fishing line out into the world and brought back the considerable catch of the prestigious Booker Prize, is a perfect little novel with a modest voice and absolutely devastating proportions. Though several of Brookner's later books might justly leap into the boxing ring, throw out their chests and duke it out with "Hotel du Lac" for the honor of being the author's best, it is easy to see why "Hotel du Lac" attracted so much attention to its pretty self in the first place. Surrounded by crowds of Brookner admirers, it fans itself calmly, smiles with assurance, and opens wide its lovely eyes to acknowledge the presence of those who think it remarkable. "Hotel du Lac" takes place in an exotic setting. It focusses on a child's handful of characters who slip, at first nearly unnoticed, into the inner caverns of one's brain and remain lodged there with the tenacity of veteran spelunkers. The short time span covered by the book's plot intensifies the urgency of the action to a very heightened degree, as if chef Brookner were heating up the whole concoction in a kind of high tech literary pressure cooker. The result is a flavorful feast for anyone who cares to acquire a taste for her unique fusion of carefully chosen ingredients: the intense internal monologue; observation of phenomena in nearly microscopic detail; the situation of those who, by choice or otherwise, must live their lives essentially alone. Edith Hope, the book's main character, once met can never be forgotten. Why not walk by her side for the short space of these twelve lovely chapters? Would her decisions be yours? "Hotel du Lac" is a particularly intriguing resort destination, well worth the price of a week on its venerable verandahs.
Rating: 
Summary: dull and disappointing
Review: Had just read Altered States, which I loved. Thought, if Hotel du Lac won the Booker Prize, it must be great, right? Wrong. As interesting and entertaining as Altered States was, this book was not--dull people, dull story, all in all, a waste of an afternoon. Luckily, it was a Library book and not a wasted purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: beautifully written
Review: Had to agree with the reviewer who loved the blue flower. Felt both to be wonderful reading experiences. Must say that this book captured the experience of Switzerland in the autumn.
Rating:
Summary: Precise and Elegant Storyline
Review: Hotel Du Lac is a treat. It reminded me of Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools, but with a hotel setting rather than a ship setting, because of the wonderfully drawn characters who come together in this hotel. I was intrigued with Edith's banishment to the Hotel Du Lac by her friends. What could she possibly have done? The setting is superb in its grayness. It feels cozy to me- the walks around the lake, tea drinking. Edith is an old soul, though only 39 years old, and is so likable. She's generous and thoughtful, and she learns a great deal about herself while at the hotel. We should all banish ourselves away somewhere when we are troubled! I loved the ending; I was so fearful it would go one way, and was grateful that it didn't. I can't wait to read more of Brookner, and am so grateful to have found her. She writes cleanly, with precision, and with beautiful word choices. She rates right up there with the best writers of women's fiction (with Kate Chopin, Katherine Ann Porter, Edith Wharton, especially). Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: a gem
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Apprentice work...
Review: Hotel du Lac, Brookner's fourth novel, reminds one very much of Henry James, Katherine Mansfield and, most of all, that mistress in ironic observation, Jane Austen. Her prose style could be a delight, and is at best refreshingly limpid.
Yet by the time I came to the end of this short novel, I had felt Brookner was writing a novel based on style with very little substance. The barren plot cringes, the characters are stock and two-dimensional, and the protagonist concerns herself with trivialities and broods and broods...about nothing really worth at all. The deus ex machina is perhaps the most unbelievable--a protagonist who falls into the same trap *twice* over the course of the book is simply not credible enough. In the end romance novelist Edith Hope elicits very little sympathy; whereas one comes out of an Austen or James novel feeling older and wiser, one feels here that Brookner is extending her tentacles very tentatively at something supposedly profound, without reaching it at all. One star for the style, and another for making me finish the book, which is quite a feat.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but don't rush out to buy this.
Review: I bought this book after reading several Amazon reviews; I was intrigued that the same book had generated both overwhelmingly positive and aggressively negative responses. Well... it didn't do much for me. I agree with the reviewers who say the characters are flat and one-dimensional (I didn't really care what became of them), and Brookner's prose can be long-winded at times. As a fan of contemporary British fiction, I can think of several authors whose novels I would recommend over this one: Hilary Mantel, Helen Dunmore, Kate Atkinson, Mary Wesley, Margaret Drabble, the list goes on. Hotel du Lac is not a terrible book, but don't make it a priority.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time...
Review: I don't get it. I know I'm behind the times, but as I was traveling through Morocco I found an old copy of Hotel du Lac and paid about 20 Dirhams (about $2.25). I was robbed! Not only does nothing happen in this "book", but I got nothing out of it at all. Was 1984 such a bad year for the Booker Prize folks that THIS won???
Rating:
Summary: What was the Booker Prize Committee thinking?
Review: I looked forward to reading this novel and, having finished it, I can truly say that if Anita Brookner was trying to create an atmosphere of upper class ennui, then she surely accomplished her goal -- unfortunately, this reader was filled with ennui while reading it. I have no idea what competition this book faced to win the Booker Prize, but it must have been an abysmal year in British fiction. I can't imagine where the so-called "wit" of this novel was, and I couldn't have cared less about its shallow characters. BORING and turgid. I needed to take a shower when I was through with it -- blech.
Rating:
Summary: Wake me when it's over
Review: I read this book on the recommendation of a friend who noted the art of it, and I did finish it, but my reaction was more frustration than satisfaction. The protagonist's motivation was held overly long ... right to the end, which might have been all right if I'd been enchanted by the descriptions of the vacuous characters sharing her world, but there wasn't anything enchanting about them. I hung on to learn something about her that was satisfying -- something that would make my investment in time worthwhile. (The longer an author holds out on you, the more you expect as a payoff however, and this story didn't deliver). When the secrets of Edith's motivation were finally revealed, I liked her even less. Perhaps if I had come to know her earlier I might have felt something more rewarding than annoyance. The author did indeed create an artfully bleak picture of dreary lives, but it was a picture all in shades of gray. Great for putting one to sleep.
|
