Kathy Hamilton A Start in Life by Anita Brookner feels like the work of an author in their prime; so I was surprised to discover that it was actually her first novel. Her crisp yet grandiloquent style gives her a gravitas most novelists learn by experience. For her, it seems, it came naturally.
“Ruth Weiss, an academic, is beautiful, intelligent and lonely. Studying the heroines of Balzac in order to discover where her own childhood and adult life has gone awry, she seeks not salvation but enlightenment. Yet in revisiting her London upbringing, her friendships and doomed Parisian love affairs, she wonders if perhaps there might not be a chance for a new start in life . . .“
First published in 1981, A Start in Life by Anita Brookner has a timeless quality about it. Ruth, the protagonist would easily fit into a 19th, 20th or even (at a push) 21st-century setting. This is because, at its heart, the novel is a character study rather than a plot-driven novel. It relies on the perennial facets of human nature that make us interesting and doesn’t need to rely heavily on the setting. However, Ruth does move from London to Oxford and Paris throughout the book.
“Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.” ”
― Anita Brookner, A Start in Life
Additionally, although A Start in Life was her first foray into the world of fiction, you get the sense that Anita Brookner carefully considered the use of every word, with a linguist’s devotion to detail. What emerges is a wry, often cynical, somewhat uplifting read. The novel is short but it is tightly constructed and this gives it weight.
If you have ever sat, in a despondent mood, wondering what has gone wrong in your life then this book will appeal to you. The entire book is taken up with reminiscence- a mise en abyme- as Ruth, at forty, tries to work out why she feels so dissatisfied. It is only when she tries to pull together the disparate threads of her existence that she begins to reconcile them to her present.
In this reminiscence, we are introduced to some fantastic characters. Helen and George, Ruth’s self-absorbed and self-centred parents are always scene stealers. Particularly Helen, a faded actress who gradually turns into a time-consuming faux invalid and delivers some wicked one-liners. To Mrs Cutler, the vulgar housekeeper and to Anthea, Ruth’s sometime friend and alter ego who manages to achieve everything Ruth cannot- marriage and family, and yet seems dissatisfied with both.
Ruth, herself is an almost passive vessel, influenced and hindered by these characters. She reacts to their neglect and indifference by devoting herself to 19th-century literature which provides her with a simple template on how to live her life, uncomplicated by real human emotion.
What kind of life should we pursue?
A common thread in both Hotel du Lac (Anita Brookner’s Booker Prize-winning novel) and A Start in Life is passivity. Life is active, it is lived- a verb dashing ahead at pace. By contrast, Brookner’s protagonists in both novels have been forced by circumstance to let things happen around them. Ruth’s building malaise and dissatisfaction lies in the fact that her life has been dictated to her by expectation. For example, although she was largely ignored by her parents she is still expected to give up her independence to care for them.
One criticism often levelled at Anita Brookner is that her books are repetition on a theme- in that they deal with a single woman past a certain age. The woman who wishes not to be, the dutiful daughter overwhelmed by filial obligation, the family that is not unhappy but not quite happy. But to me, it has been so refreshing to discover an author who talks about these topics. It seems typical that a female author writing about domestic themes is dismissed, but these critics miss the vital importance of her work.
Every life has value, Every life has regrets
Ruth is a woman struggling to make a life for herself or to make peace with the one she has. However, when given the chance to alter her life, she does not. Why? Is it because life is messy? Although she rails against it I believe that the security and simplicity of literature becomes preferable to Ruth. It has value to her. It is a worthy cause to pursue. And to me, this is the crux of things. In daring to show us Ruth’s life of ordinariness Anita Brookner achieves something groundbreaking. Ruth is not a larger-than-life heroine. She never suddenly flourishes into the star she was meant to be. Instead, she has the weight and feel of a real human. Complete with dissatisfaction and regrets.
Anita Brookner once called herself “The Loneliest Women in London” and she was certainly proficient in describing the curious and pervasive effects of loneliness and its close cousin, unhappiness in her books. In a time when we live in a loneliness epidemic (if you believe the news). I think Anita Brookner’s writing in A Start in Life offers solace. It definitely contains loneliness but also wit, independence and a woman who discovers that not living the life she expected can be better after all. That is because no life is free from regrets. Each character in the book has them, and as Ruth reminisces she begins to understand this.
Ultimately the message I took from A Start in Life by Anita Brooker was this. In waiting for the life we expect to exist to begin, we risk missing the day-to-day beauty of the life we are already living.
