Brief Lives
By Anita Brookner
Random House, 262 pages, $19
Like many visual artists, the prolific British novelist Anita Brookner, who`s also an international authority on 18th Century paintings, frequently works out subtle variations on a single theme. Several of her novels feature the struggles of tentative heroines in the thrall of people older, more worldly or simply more strong-willed than themselves.
In ”The Debut,” Brookner`s own fictional debut, the older couple are the parents of a brilliant and beautiful academic whose promise is thwarted by their closeness and self-absorption. In ”Hotel Du Lac,” which was awarded England`s prestigious Booker Prize, a jilted writer of romance novels is promptly taken up and over by three fellow guests at the resort to which she`s escaped to recover from her broken heart. And in ”A Friend From England,”
the familiar persona is split between two female characters, one of whom becomes a kind of instructive companion to the other.
Now, in ”Brief Lives,” Brookner`s 10th novel, the wary, long-term relationship between two women-one passive, the other aggressive-is recalled and examined by the former, Fay Langdon, soon after the death of the latter, Julia Wilberforce. Although Fay`s recollection presumes to be a post-mortem report on a difficult friendship with a difficult woman, the discoveries she finally makes are most tellingly about herself.
Like the actress-mother in ”The Debut,” Julia has retired early from a theatrical career. Once a celebrated cabaret star, she`s now virtually housebound by severe arthritis. But she retains the vanity of her glamorous heyday, and her sense of command over an audience, although it`s a pitifully reduced audience of family and hangers-on.
Her second husband, Charlie Morton, who ”always stood a little behind her, throwing her into relief,” is in ardent attendance. So are Julia`s elderly mother and drinking companion; a housekeeper-cum-slave named Maureen; and Pearl Chesney, Julia`s former dresser. Despite her misgivings, Fay pays court as well.
She says, of Julia, ”She was not a very nice woman, but then neither am I. . . . Basically, I found her alarming and she found me boring.” And, later, ”Julia was a dedicated woman. She was dedicated principally to herself.”
As advertised, Julia Wilberforce is imperious, insulting and unnervingly restless. Yet it is Brookner`s triumph that we come to understand the odd dynamics of her devoted little entourage.
Fay is the very antithesis of Julia. Once a modestly successful lyric soprano, she`s satisfied with the smallest pleasures of life. She`s a woman excited by the freshness of a summer`s day, an innocent who tries rigorously
(although without much success) not to think disturbing thoughts. Even her favorite songs, which include ”Only Make Believe,” ”I`ll be Loving You Always,” and ”Arcady” (”Arcady, Arcady is always young”), are indicative of her doggedly willed cheerfulness.
Her mother and her close friend Millie, another singer, almost seem, by their protectiveness, to have conspired to preserve Fay`s innocence. She marries the spoiled and self-contained Owen Langdon out of passion, but remains married out of convention and a desire to please.
Fay recognizes the nature of her attraction for this man-”I was straightforward, transparent, unlikely to present him with problems or complications”-and dutifully holds up her end of the bargain. She serves Owen and his disagreeable mother, Lavinia, as she served her own mother since childhood, with obedient affection and gratitude for the dailiness of her existence.
The lives of Fay and Julia cross because their husbands work together as solicitors, Owen in a junior position to Charlie, but the women`s association outlasts the men`s. Indeed, it outlasts the men themselves, although Fay admits on the first page that ”I never liked her, nor did she like me.”
The hold that Julia has over Fay is more complex than her submission to Julia`s stronger personality; it has to do with guilt and terror as well. Soon after Owen is killed in an accident, Charlie comes to comfort Fay and they begin an affair. It`s discreetly carried out, but Julia, with her
argumentative style and acerbic tongue, appears to be dropping hints that she knows all about it. When Fay tries to rush off during a visit, she`s chilled by Julia`s condescending comment, ”Anyone would think you had a lover,”
which elicits ”obedient laughter all around.”
Julia`s power over Maureen and Mrs. Chesney weakens after a while, and they claim their independent lives. But Fay continues under the spell of Julia`s emotional blackmail, even long after Charlie`s death.
Brookner`s vision of human behavior is scrupulously honest, without ever being cruel. She has a special gift for witty and incisive observation, easily demonstrated by some of her capsule descriptions.
Owen`s mother, before applying her usual heavy makeup, ”looked like a seamed and battered twelve-year-old.” Fay notes that Julia`s ”face lit up, as with glad tidings, as she pronounced her own name.” And of herself, Fay tells us, ”Some said I was a pretty girl, although standards were lower then.”
Brookner`s characters can be disconcertingly canny. They tend to say things most people keep buried in their unconscious and release only with the license of psychoanalysis or dreams. Almost every sentence they utter is a gem of revelation, as when Fay remarks of some well-heeled guests of Owen`s,
”They had not become rich by being charming to unimportant people like myself.”
”Brief Lives” is a compelling account of an existence shaped and compromised by both acceptance and regret. The only flaw in this tightly coiled and finely wrought novel is that there is a rather slow and lengthy exposition before the real story begins to unfold. But that story, with its tender insights and sharply ironic edges, is well worth the wait.
