Falling Slowly

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful but grim novel
Review: "Falling Slowly" is Anita Brookner's 18th novel in as many years, and one has to wonder: How many ways are there to say that a human's lot is a lonely, desultory one? This is the story of two middle-aged sisters, Beatrice, a stately romantic, and the younger Miriam, a hard realist. Even lovers and marriage offer the sisters no relief from loneliness and their state of being "mysteriously isolated from the world." It is tempting to compare Brookner to Barbara Pym, for they both write about women in that same segment of London society-- intelligent women of "comfortable" circumstances, always assessing how "suitable" everything is and turning to cups of tea in moments of crisis. But while Pym's women seem old fashioned, they are really quite game as they look to catch the vicar's eye at a church "jumble sale." Brookner's women-- and men-- although more modern, are more thoroughly introverted and repressed. When happiness dangles before them they invariably find an excuse to return to their self-imposed solitude. Oddly, however grim Brookner's outlook, one continues to read her novels for their beautiful, precise prose, and for her quiet snatches of humor.

Rating:
Summary: Another moving Brookner experience!
Review: I should confess at the outset that I harbor the same unbounding love for Anita Brookner's writing that I do for the acting of Anthony Hopkins -- that is, I would be awestruck to see Hopkins on stage merely scratching his head or filing his nails, and I would probably wait on line to see a cheque written by Brookner! My bias notwithstanding, this has become my new favorite Brookner novel, as Miriam is the Brookner heroine with whom I have identified most strongly. She is definitely 'typical' of the somewhat repressed, guarded and alienated upper/middle class women whom Brookner has crafted, but at the same time, Miriam has a spark and feistiness that went far to balance out some VERY sensitive moments vis-a-vis her more delicate sister Beatrice -- think Anna from "Fraud" with a stronger backbone! I expect all Brookner fans will share an enthusiastic reaction to this book, and I believe that it's more contemporary vibe and heroine will attract new readers to the Brookner fold!

Rating:
Summary: Sad book about two lonely sisters drifting through life.
Review: In "Falling Slowly," Miriam and Beatrice Sharpe are two sisters who are the products of a loveless marriage. However, instead of going out and grabbing happiness for themselves after they become adults, Miriam and Beatrice half-heartedly pursue careers and tepid, bloodless relationships with men. At one point, Miriam meets a man, Simon Haggard, whom she loves and who makes her feel alive. Unfortunately, Simon is a married man with children, and he is hardly a candidate for a long-term relationship. Still another man comes into Miriam's life, Tom Rivers, but she is unwilling to commit herself to him. Beatrice lives in a cloud of romantic ideals and, after retiring from playing the piano, she merely exists from day to day, without any real goals. Why read about these two depressing women? Brookner's strength is that she makes us care about Miriam and Beatrice, even though we would like to shake them. They come across as intelligent women who could make better choices in their lives if they would wake up and see the possibilities in front of them. Unfortunately, they never do.

Rating:
Summary: Brookner Continues to Delight
Review: In Henry James's The Ambassadors, the aging protagonist urges his young friend to "Live! Live all you can; it's a mistake not to." Anita Brookner is often compared to James and Brookner's isolated and often friendless heroines inevitably make the quietly tragic mistake which James's character decries. In one finely-drawn novel after another over two decades, she has explored the fascinating consequences of such mistakes, finding drama and passion in what from the outside may seem like very undramatic lives.

In the moving and intelligent Falling Slowly, English translator Miriam Sharpe actually turns to readings Henry James after death and disappointment mar her life. She is a woman whose central imperative in life has been to avoid risk and alarm in whatever form. Raised by difficult, dismissive parents in a bleak household, neither she nor her sister Beatrice had been prepared to be welcomed by the world, let alone loved. Though she tried to enjoy her youth, Miriam found itdisappointing. That time of her life wasn't just a letdown in itself, it never led--as she assumed it would--to a brand new and glorious chapter of her life, "one that was to obliterate botched beginnings."

With "no particular calling," Miriam drifted into working as a translator of contemporary French novels, thanks to her gift for languages and her speed. Though this work means frequent trips to Paris, that city itself holds no romantic promise for her, existing simply as a scene for business. And her translating doesn't seem much more than a kind of intellectual drudgery. While her old-fashioned accompanist sister--whose career is unfulfilling--dreams of a man right out of a Silhouette romance, Miriam longs for a real home, a place bustling with life where she feels connected.

For Miriam, an affair and even a five-year marriage pass as if she were drugged by time itself. Her relationship with her sister fades in and out, growing more like that of her parents. In Brookner's novels, the clash between expectations and reality tends to play out on a field where overly careful people get entangled with the careless. Here, the conflicts are more muted than usual.

Falling Slowly may not be as striking or as focused as last year's stunning Visitors, in part because of POV switches. But it still showcases Brookner's strengths in registering the nuances of lives suffused by resignation and longing. She charts the sad passage of time in changing faces and fortunes, fading dreams and chintzes, better than almost any other contemporary novelist, which gives her small books an unexpectedly expansive feel. And her elegant, insightful prose is so admirably balanced, so consistently pleasurable, so seductively witty that you're often likely to reread passages or even feel moved to read them aloud to others. Like Austen, with whom she is also often compared, Brookner works on a small canvas, but with a profound understanding of the tragicomic potential of desires gone amiss.

Lev Raphael, author of LITTLE MISS EVIL, 4th in the Nick Hoffman series. www.levraphael.com

Rating:
Summary: amusing, but ultimately flawed (BEWARE SPOILERS)
Review: While "Falling Slowly" resonated with a few aspects of my experience, I didn't come away with any new insights. The writing was high caliber, despite the bulk of the book being the various characters' internal dialogs---which I feel is the book's strength, and its weakness. As without real conflict and exchange of words, the dénouement and various plot devices had less impact, i.e. Tom River's plane going into the ocean. It occurred with such little build up that his death didn't take on the veneer of real tragedy.

The two central figures of the book, the sisters, are well developed, but with a healthy dose of myopia as far as culpability on the part of the author--she painted them as victims of a loveless family thereby making all their subsequent relationships dysfunctional--in response to this they isolate from the world; Beatrice escaping into romantic literature, and the other into her cloistered work life. I feel that the book might have strayed more into the literary realm if Mildred or whatever her name was had thrown off this victim mantel and taken control of her life---but the author wanted to paint a picture of old school women and how afflicted they were--a patently untrue sentiment, evidence the many strong historical female figures, e.g. queen Elizabeth.

Then there are the various male figures in the book; all of which fail to take on life due to their shallow construction.

The husband with his inane questions (it's implausible that she'd failed to notice this character defect in all the years she'd known him growing up--and that a man as intelligent as a biochemist would display such stupidity is improbable).

Tom River's inexplicable desire to bed her despite her advanced age and his clearly superior prospects based on both looks and career.

The development of Max in the later part of the book, and transformation from peripheral meal ticket to disappointment, "he wasn't a suitor, but a (can't remember the word, but it indicated he was a supplicant at their imperial court), and thereby all his utterances could be discounted out of hand." Once again a negative male stereotype.

Then the married man she had an affair with--another stereotype--that the only man fit for any woman is a fantasy, hazily sketched, who (of course, no fault of the woman) casts a glamour and is gone--that this male figure has no feelings further objectifies men.

What I've attempted here is to point out the subtext, which is rife with female prejudice, and erroneous assumptions--but plays well in this age of patronizing female aggrandizement.