Providence
"Words meant such a very great deal to her --- and more than that, information conveyed by means of words --- that she wanted than to mean a great deal to everyone else." Providence, p 113-14, Anita Brookner
Anita Brookner was an English art historian and author who presented a bleak view of life in her fiction, much of which deals with the loneliness experienced by middle-aged women who meet romantically unsuitable men and feel a growing sense of alienation from society.
If you have not read Anita Brookner Providence is a wonderful novel with which to start. I daresay you will not look back as you traverse some of her many (too numerous to count) novels of romance and the social difficulties of young women - and sometimes not so young - in love. In this one the protagonist, Kitty Maule, longs to be "totally unreasonable, totally unfair, very demanding, and very beautiful." She is instead clever, reticent, self-possessed, and striking. For years Kitty has been tactfully courting her colleague Maurice Bishop, a detached, elegant English professor.
Brookner uses Kitty's specialty of Romantic literature, the novel Adolphe by Benjamin Constant in particular, as a centerpiece of her interaction with her students. But this novel also reflects on Kitty's imagined relationship with Maurice. Kitty has a lively imagination; at one point while reading a novel her mind wanders to the famous story of Paolo and Francesca from Dante's Divine Comedy and she ponders their apotheosis of a kiss followed by death. As she slowly runs out of patience, Kitty's amorous pursuit takes her from rancorous academic committee rooms and lecture halls to French cathedrals and Parisian rooming houses, from sittings with her dress-making grandmother to seances with a grandmotherly psychic. About two thirds through the novel she sees Maurice praying to the Virgin and has an epiphany: "I am alone, and she leaned against a pillar, her throat aching." Her imagination could carry her only so far and her relationship of Maurice begins to seem ephemeral at best.
Brookner demonstrates her mastery of character and of the telling of detail in Providence. Touching, funny, and stylistically breathtaking, the novel is a brightly polished gem of romantic comedy tinged with regret. My favorite moments are the many literary references which warm the heart of this inveterate bibliophile. The best of Brookner that I have read is Hotel du Lac for which she was awarded the Booker Prize. However, if you do not want to start at the deep end you should try reading Providence first.
2 comments:
This sounds very good. The issues that middle aged people face are sometimes neglected in novels of this sort. I also like books with a lot of literary references. Kitty seems like s great character.
This is an insightful and intelligent literary criticism of Anita Brookner's novel. Brookner's specialism is in French art history when she was teaching art history at Courtauld Institute. She is definitely in her element in this novel as she draws the analogy of the characters in Constant's short novel, Adolphe with her ficitional characters in the novel. There are two examples of Brookner's novels. They are either picture within a picture or novel within a novel. In this case of 'Providence', I think it is the latter.
One of the reasons why I love reading this novel in particular is that this is one novel that comes closest for revealing Brookner's teaching style, and what she must be like as a teacher in her classroom. I have read the reminiscences of her elegant lectures from her former students at Courtauld and the most insightful lectures she gave as a first female Slade Professor of Art. But the way Kitty conducts her tutorials in this novel must be very similar to the way Brookner taught in her class.
Thank you once again for this thoughtful review of my favourite writer. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post.
Post a Comment