Review: Strangers

[The last in my chronological re-read of all of Anita Brookner’s 24 novels.]

In my review of Leaving Home just a month and a half ago, two days before my 58-year old husband died unexpectedly, I wrote this:

I am now the age (52) Brookner was when she published her first novel. I have often felt myself a bit of a Brookner character. There was even a point at age 33, and just weeks before meeting the man who would become my husband, that I told a friend I had made peace with the fact that was going to be alone forever and was okay becoming a Brookner character.

In the fog of grief, I don’t remember if I read this opening line of Strangers before John died, or after:

Sturgis had always known that it was his destiny to die among strangers.

Some of you may be scratching your heads wondering why in the world I would pick up this book just four days after John died. But I do remember it was already on my nightstand and it actually proved to be pretty comforting. As I alluded to in my review of Leaving Home, I pretty much thought my life with John had inoculated me against becoming a Brookner character. Given that he was six years older and had a fair amount of chronic health issues from cancer treatment he had when he was 20, I assumed at some point I would be alone. But I must say, it came about 20 years sooner than I ever would have anticipated.

So here I am at 52, just four months short of 20 years with John, I find myself a widower. And still determined not to be a Brookner character. Perhaps even more determined than before.

Paul Sturgis is about 72, retired, never married, and the only reoccurring characters in his life are Helena, and aging widow of a distant cousin, Sarah, and aging ex-girl friend who went on to marry and become a widow by the time of this novel, and Vicky a younger (but not young) almost divorced woman who Paul met at a cafe in Venice. It turns out none of these relationships have anything that will keep Paul from feeling alone. But then we get what is a happy ending for a Brookner novel. The last paragraph:

Quietly he replaced the receiver. Just as quietly he picked up his bag, closed the door behind him, and set out for France, beginning his journey to another life. Making it new.

And that is what I need to do. I need to make it new. John would be the first person to tell me to wring the hell out of the rest of my life. With multiple bouts of tears on a good day, it is far too early to know what that might mean. But I know it is true.

This review is no good. I’m generally not that good anyway, and, annoyingly, for the first time in my history with WordPress, it froze and didn’t save my work when I had finished a much better review than this about 23 minutes ago. But here is the deal, after reading Brookner’s 24 novels twice each, I can boil down to this: they are all the same book. I know it’s overly simplistic and shows my lack of literary training, but damn if it isn’t true. I love all of them, and look forward to reading them all a third time. They are immensely well-written, the prose glitters in its spare precision. But they are all pretty damn similar. For those that like them, this is a blessing, not a curse.