Hotel du Lac made me realize that I was reading great books since I started reading award-winning books. To be honest, I hadn’t read a book that moved me for so long. I’m sure its effects will be with me for a long time. I plan to reread this for a couple of times, whenever I feel like I want to be with myself.
The little details
The part I was most impressed with Hotel du Lac was that I could identify myself with the main character, immediately. I felt like I was reading about myself; from the choice of clothes to the internal conversations. I also noticed how much I missed wearing cardigans and staying in a hotel. Don’t you also find it scary that sometimes books reveal little details in life and you can’t stop thinking about them? Now I would love to go to a hotel all by myself; hang out with people I don’t know, get involved in their lives, do little walks by the lake, talk to myself and just be there. Wouldn’t that be nice?
The extraordinary language of Anita Brookner, her colourful and deep characters, as well as the peaceful setting are worth reading all night. I strongly recommend you to read this Man Booker Award winner. In short, get your candles and choice of beverage ready and lose yourself in this great book. You won’t regret it.
About the book: Hotel du Lac
‘The Hotel du Lac was a dignified building, a house of repute, a traditional establishment, used to welcoming the prudent, the well-to-do, the retired, the self-effacing, the respected patrons of an earlier era’
Into the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel du Lac timidly walks Edith Hope, romantic novelist and holder of modest dreams. Edith has been exiled from home after embarrassing herself and her friends. She has refused to sacrifice her ideals and remains stubbornly single. But among the pampered women and minor nobility Edith finds Mr Neville, and her chance to escape from a life of humiliating loneliness is renewed.
‘A classic…a book which will be read with pleasure a hundred years from now’ Spectator
About the author: Anıta Brookner
Anita Brookner CBE was an English award-winning novelist and art historian. She was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge from 1967 to 1968 and was the first woman to hold this visiting professorship. She was awarded the 1984 Man Booker Prize for her novel Hotel du Lac.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
