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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A brilliant and compelling novel which looks at spinsterhood, solitude and life. Is her passiveness a primary detriment to her development?
reflective
sad
It was then that I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you find you have no voice at the world's tribunals, and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present, and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state 'I hurt' or 'I hate' or 'I want'. Or, indeed, 'Look at me'.
For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory.
she’s literally me
For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory.
she’s literally me
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual content
Frances works in a Library. Her work there is secondary to the work she undertakes each evening - using the cast of characters she encounters at the Library to inform her writing. Eventually she is one of the Doctors from the Research Institute (which the Library is part of), Nick, and his wife Alix seem to take Frances under their wing. Frances is delighted, she feels like she is leaving her old life behind and entering into a new world of excitement, sensual pleasures and selfishness. But she experiences it at a remove, she is always the outsider, always the observer. Always looking, seldom if ever looked at despite the refrain which echoes throughout the work.
This is a novel that takes its time getting under your skin, but once it does you can't look away. You can only look on, looking through Frances. She wants change, but any change is ephemeral, her thoughts are like quicksilver as one moment she has resolutely made up her mind only for an uttered phrase, a perceived slight, a memory, to send her down a different road.
I will admit that because Look at Me is a slow burner that I didn't enjoy it initially. Compared to some of my recent reads it felt like a slog, but once you get about a third of the way through you will stay with Frances.
This is a novel that takes its time getting under your skin, but once it does you can't look away. You can only look on, looking through Frances. She wants change, but any change is ephemeral, her thoughts are like quicksilver as one moment she has resolutely made up her mind only for an uttered phrase, a perceived slight, a memory, to send her down a different road.
I will admit that because Look at Me is a slow burner that I didn't enjoy it initially. Compared to some of my recent reads it felt like a slog, but once you get about a third of the way through you will stay with Frances.
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
When I started this, I found its premise so similar to [a:Claire Messud|2508|Claire Messud|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1384661816p2/2508.jpg]’s [b:The Woman Upstairs|15701217|The Woman Upstairs|Claire Messud|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1345666863s/15701217.jpg|18450578] that I was disconcerted and distracted. Somewhere in its middle, when something different happens, I settled into it. Brookner’s first-person narrator doesn’t ‘rant’ as Messud said in an interview of her character Nora; the former is chillingly controlled, but this too is a cry from the soul, as the rejection and intense loneliness she experiences is realistically and achingly delineated.
In connection to recent literary pursuits of mine, her loneliness had me thinking of [b:E. M. Forster: A Life|3104|E. M. Forster A Life|P.N. Furbank|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328875044s/3104.jpg|6956] (mostly in relation to Forster's [b:Maurice|3103|Maurice|E.M. Forster|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361934128s/3103.jpg|2394184]); and the name of the narrator --My name is Frances Hinton and I do not like to be called Fanny.-- brought to mind [a:Frances Trollope|767847|Frances Trollope|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399824913p2/767847.jpg] who was called "Fanny" by a belittling press. Here, it's the couple that befriends the narrator that insists on the diminutive, and worse.
In connection to recent literary pursuits of mine, her loneliness had me thinking of [b:E. M. Forster: A Life|3104|E. M. Forster A Life|P.N. Furbank|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328875044s/3104.jpg|6956] (mostly in relation to Forster's [b:Maurice|3103|Maurice|E.M. Forster|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1361934128s/3103.jpg|2394184]); and the name of the narrator --My name is Frances Hinton and I do not like to be called Fanny.-- brought to mind [a:Frances Trollope|767847|Frances Trollope|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399824913p2/767847.jpg] who was called "Fanny" by a belittling press. Here, it's the couple that befriends the narrator that insists on the diminutive, and worse.