Hotel du Lac

Hotel du Lac

First edition cover
Author	Anita Brookner
Cover artist	Susan Moxley
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Publisher	Jonathan Cape (UK) Pantheon (USA)
Publication date	6 September 1984
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	184 pp (hardback edition)
ISBN	0-679-75932-8
OCLC	33411117

Hotel du Lac is a 1984 Booker Prize-winning novel by English writer Anita Brookner. It centres on Edith Hope, a romance novelist who is staying in a hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva. There she meets other English visitors, including Mrs Pusey, Mrs Pusey's daughter Jennifer, and an attractive middle-aged man, Mr Neville.^[1]

Plot

Edith reaches Hotel du Lac in a state of bewildered confusion at the turn of events in her life. After a secret and often lonely affair with a married man and an aborted marriage, she is banished by her friends. They advise her to go on "probation" so as to "grow up", "be a woman", and atone for her mistakes.

Edith comes to the hotel swearing not to change. However, the hotel's silent charms and her observations of the guests there all tug at Edith with questions about her identity, forcing her to examine who she is and what she has been. At the hotel, she observes people from different walks of life — Mrs Pusey and her daughter Jennifer, their love for each other, and the splendid oblivious lives they live; Mme de Bonneuil, who lives at the hotel in solitary expulsion from her son; and Monica, who came to the hotel acceding to her husband's demands. Edith falls for the ambiguous smile of Mr Neville, who asks for her hand in marriage. She considers a life of recognition that being married to Neville would confer upon her, but ultimately rejects the possibility of a relationship with him when she realises he is an incorrigible womaniser. This also finally leads her to realise what her life is expected to be. Once again, she breaks chains and decides to take things into her own hands and leaves Hotel du Lac.

Reception

In a 1981 book review by Kirkus Reviews called the book a "sad little comedy", summarizing it as "less subtle, more artificial than Brookner's three previous, similar character-portraits: the themes are laid on thick... Still, for readers who relish a blend of extra-dry humor, tartly wistful introspection, and literary self-consciousness, this small entertainment—winner of England's Booker Prize—will be a delicate, provocative pleasure."^[2] Anne Tyler, writing for The New York Times called it "Brookner's most absorbing novel" and praised the book for its tone: "oddly detached, very small-scale, faintly humorous".^[1]

Awards

The novel won the Booker Prize in 1984.

Film adaptation

A film of the same name was adapted for television by Christopher Hampton and produced by the BBC and A&E Television Networks in 1986. It starred Anna Massey and Denholm Elliott.

References