The Bay of Angels

Rating:
Summary: Well...
Review: I am perhaps one of the most rabid of the countless readers who eagerly await each year's new Anita Brookner novel, but, I have to admit, I was fairly disappointed in this one. I can't help feeling I must have missed something, because I am stunned by how utterly uninvolving the characters and the plot were to me. Brookner's prose, as always, is breathtaking, so I would recommend this to any fan, with the caveat: "Wait for the paperback". New Brookner readers would do better to start with Look at Me and Hotel du Lac or my more recent favorites, Falling Slowly and Undue Influence

Rating:
Summary: not her best
Review: I used to be a huge fan of Brookner. In fact I have read every book but one, her very latest. I don't know if I will read it. Perhaps I am outgrowing her, but "Bay of Angels" was not only one of the worst Brookner I have read, but one of the worst books I have read. It was hard work, with no reward, and I never believed in the characters. If you want to read Brookner at her best, try "Dolly" or "Look at Me" or "A Closed Eye".

Rating:
Summary: Depressed, boring, passive, weak women
Review: I've been listening to the book on tape, and am giving up. The characters are totally self-absorbed, shallow and uninteresting. A story may develop as time goes on, and Zoe may find some gumption and energy by the end of the book, but Brookner takes too many pages for me to persevere. Sorry.

Rating:
Summary: Angels and drama from the best writer around
Review: This writer has got to be the best wordsmith around. In each novel the sentences stand alone, dynamic, fresh and gleaming in intensity. The story is important, the characters are profound but these are often upstaged by the absolute pleasure of reading such sharp writing. I can't be the only person buying the latest novel of Anita Brookner every year as soon as it hits the shelf.

Much has been said about Brookner's lonely women and feminist approach and I will leave that to others who are better informed than me to remark upon. What I look for in every novel is the dramatic turn which never fails to be exciting. In THE BAY OF ANGELS, there are several but the most outstanding is the moment when Zoe returns to reclaim her stepfather's house in Nice and finds it already occupied, cocktails in hand, by his greedy relatives. The attitudes and survival tactics of the women who share the clinique with Zoe's sick mother are searing. Best of all is the moment by the sea when Zoe's reflects on the angels flying up from the bay and inward to land where they will reinforce the already celestial commercialism of earth.

A friend of mine in London once remarked to me that he sometimes sees Anita Brookner early in the morning on the Kings Road heading towards Waitrose supermarket. I was astounded, "doesn't anyone stop her," I asked imagining that she would be beset with fans. "No," said my friend, "nobody knows who she is." I would prefer to think that London is so vast that it renders one anonymous and invisible which is often the very dilemma ensnaring her characters.

Rating:
Summary: Man, What a Dreary Little Book
Review: What a tiresome trudge it was to get through this slim book. In a mere 220 or so pages the writer manages to repeat the same boring, navel gazing tosh several times over. The Bay of Angels has nothing of any interest to say and the ennui filled mood of the characters and plot did nothing positive for me. Anita, your characters need to get a life! (I would have liked to give this book zero stars.)