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A review by teresatumminello
Look at Me by Anita Brookner
4.0
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.