Brookner and a Bathtub

[A Brookneresque day trip to Torino in February 2019. Originally posted in somewhat altered form at Hogglestock.]

When I was looking online for a hotel for a night in Turin, I did as I typically would do and tried to find some cool boutique hotel in an interesting neighborhood. There were some pretty good options, but I decided I wanted something close to the train station and/or the Teatro Regio. In making that choice I was somewhat limited in my choice of the types of hotels available. As I started to comb through the rather uninspiring options I thought “you’ll be Alps-adjacent, why not stay in a grand old hotel that an Anita Brookner character might choose?” Something that looks like it would have porters and telegrams and mature women travelling with their adult daughters.

The thing is, by the time my trip rolled around months and months later, I had forgotten about this Brookner-related choice. And then an interesting thing happened on the train…

When I bought my train ticket for the one-hour trip from Milan to Turin I somewhat impulsively chose a first class ticket. The price difference wasn’t all that much and given some tummy issues I had been having, anything I could do to minimize possible annoyances seemed like a good idea. As I sat comfortably in my seat watching the snow-capped mountains in the distance I noticed this character…

My first thought was that she looked like someone who could be one of the more glamorous characters in a Brookner novel. (Again, I had totally forgotten about my Brookner-related hotel choice.) Then the gentle lady spoke to her husband. She was English. Check. They were discussing how the 59-minute train delay was going to make them miss their connection to Switzerland. Check. It seems they are English but have a house in the Swiss Alps. Check. Then she gets on the phone to someone (a housekeeper perhaps?) in Switzerland to tell her they wouldn’t be arriving until the next day and asking how much snow there had been and whether the huskies had been out yet. Check and check. I’m pretty sure Brookner never overtly discussed the snow in Switzerland in her novels or mentioned many dogs, and certainly not huskies. But seriously, how could this woman not be a secondary Brookner character? I almost asked her if her name was Dolly.

So then I got to my hotel in Turin, feeling both tired and still nursing the dull pain in my stomach, and it slowly began to dawn on me that this was to be my Brookner hotel.

If I had stayed true to Brookner form I should have had tea sent up to my room, but I didn’t.

I made it an early night and was asleep by 9:30. Check. It was a warm room, perhaps too warm, and I had fitful but dreamless sleep. Very Brooknerian. Check.

Rather than feel the need to do much in the way of sightseeing the next morning, I took a long hot bath and lounged in my room until check out time. Check and check.