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Undue Influence - Hardcover

Brookner, Anita

 
9780375503344: Undue Influence
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 037550334X ISBN 13: 9780375503344
Verlag: Random House Inc, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

When a quiet, sheltered woman begins working in a bookstore and enters into a complicated affair, her entire life is thrown into upheaval.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

<b>Anita Brookner</b> is the author of nineteen finely crafted novels, including Falling Slowly, Visitors, and Hotel du Lac, which won the Booker Prize. An international authority on eighteenth-century painting, she became the first female Slade Professor at Cambridge University. She lives in London.

Aus dem Klappentext

new novel by the author who has been called "one of the finest novelists of her generation" (The New York Times) tells the story of Claire Pitt, a young woman who has lived most of her life under the watchful eyes of her parents. After her mother's death, Claire reexamines her day-to-day routine and her future in her London flat. She passes the time working in a bookstore, where she meets a mysterious and attractive young man whose wife is ill, and they begin a relationship that dramatically alters Claire's vision of herself, her past, and her future.<br> <br>          "Under Brookner's transforming eye, the most ordinary lives become engrossing adventures," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, and in <b>Undue Influence</b> Brookner once again combines the exquisite writing and astute psychological perception for which she's famous.

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At first the man in the basement looked to me like an older and more careworn version of the man with bowed head in the cafe in Marylebone Lane who was not Mrs Hildreth's son and for whom I had imagined a whole illusory history. (I am not infallible.) This man had the same air of lassitude, which I detected in spite of his polished appearance. He was formally dressed for his visit to a dusty bookshop, although he could not have known that it would be quite so dusty. He wore a finely tailored grey suit with a faint chalk stripe, a very white shirt, and highly polished shoes. I think it was the brilliantly laundered shirt that led me to make the comparison with Mrs Hildreth's putative son, as if this man too had emerged from the hands of a watchful woman and set out, fully caparisoned, to encounter the hazards of the ordinary working day.

Except that this man obviously had no connection with the world of work: he was too careful, too immaculate. And besides, what sort of man do you find in a bookshop at ten o'clock on a Monday morning, unless he is some sort of don, about his own affairs? This man, however, was too presentable to be one of the academics we get in from time to time. He turned briefly when I said 'Good morning' before turning back to the shelves. I had an impression of a fine blond head and a fair-skinned face prematurely worn into furrows of anxiety which gave him an elderly look, although his figure was tall and upright and rather graceful.

In his hasty return to his earlier perusal of the shelves I sensed a reserve. This man would not waste time on a strange woman, with whom in any case he was not on terms of familiarity or friendship. I found him attractive, more attractive than the prospect of a day with St John Collier, who had begun to acquire a patina of benign tediousness. I pitied those two girls having to listen to him throughout their childhood, although the experience seemed to have done them no harm. Their respect for their father had remained intact, a fact at which I could only marvel. My own father had never emitted a single philosophical or semi-philosophical dictum, so that I had learned at an early age not to look to him for enlightenment, or even very much in the way of affection. He found me as tiresome as I found him, but I had never quite resolved the factors that made us so antagonistic.

I took the cover off my typewriter and pretended to be studying my papers. It would be impolite to start work with this man at my back, although he was paying me no attention. From what I could judge he was reading his way steadily through whatever came to hand, as if he had found sanctuary in our basement and was in no hurry to leave. I also detected an almost unnatural stillness, almost a watchfulness about him, as if he were sensitive to my own inactivity, or as if he knew that I was not normally an inactive person whom he had no wish to constrain by his presence. For this reason he was conscious of me, as I was of him. I shuffled the typewritten pages on my desk; clearly I could not start on the women's magazines while he appeared to be reading Heine's collected poems.  I corrected a few typing errors, resolving to work properly, innocent as well.

I am alert now to signs of damage in a man. If this is combined with physical excellence I feel a perverse desire to take him over, as if his weakness excited me. When the two conditions are combined-attractiveness and hesitation-our conjunction is often spectacular. I sometimes think that my childish ruthlessness has survived undiminished, but in fact I am careful to cause no harm. Indeed I disappear discreetly, leaving several questions unanswered. I wish that this particular pattern did not impose itself, that I could happily offer affection without that slight feeling of vengeful satisfaction. On the whole I have managed quite well. It is just that my mother's death, and the sight of those photograph albums, which kept company by her bed together with Palgrave's Golden Treasury, had weakened me. And perhaps I was undergoing the influence of St John Collier's sweet-natured assertions, as if to believe in a happier world were within the capacity of even fallen creatures like myself. For I knew myself to be at fault. The intolerance I had manifested towards my father had left a stain, which was why I was such a solitary person. A solitary person with a longing for wholeness, an experience which would cancel all the others. A baptism, if you like.

The man in the basement, of whose presence I had become uncomfortably aware, as he had of mine, smelled discreetly of some subtle scent which was far removed from the blasts of aftershave one was likely to encounter in the early morning. He gave an impression of almost futile luxury, which was implemented when he drew a snowy handkerchief from his pocket and flicked a small speck of dust from his fingers. He implied an army of servants, either that or a lonely and obsessive drive towards perfection, probably the latter. He was probably rich, certainly idle. I imagined his empty day, every gesture aiming at sublimity. He had an iconic presence, and yet I was able to observe the occasional involuntary grimace which creased his fair thin-skinned face. He was a man torn between achievement and frustration, the balance tilted towards the latter. When I sneezed he gave a violent start, as if recalled to familiarity with greater upheavals.

I offered to make him a cup of coffee but he refused effusively. I was beginning to find his continued presence rather tiresome. At the same time he impressed me as attractive. I wanted to know his story, which I was quite capable of inventing for myself. Perhaps because I had been thinking of my father I thought I detected an unhappy home background, an invalid sister to whom he was deeply attached. This selfless sister-for she would be all virtue, as in one of St John Collier's scenarios-would urge him to go out and enjoy himself. But the poor fellow would be half-hearted in this pursuit, would seek refuge, indeed basements, where his presence would impress but would remain unchallenged. This same sister would oversee his appearance, which would always be faultless, this being a subject on which they would naturally concur. I had no way of knowing how accurate or inaccurate this picture was, but I did not doubt that I was intrigued. I looked at my watch and realized that he had been silently reading for thirty-five minutes. By this time he could have had one or two of Heine's poems off by heart. Either that or he was translating them. Perhaps he too was a man of letters. But he looked too ineffable, and also too unhappy, for that. I altered my estimate of him. He was a dilettante, a caste I had always admired.


'Can I help you?' I said finally, slightly irritated by the lack of effect my presence was having on him. Besides, I wanted to get on with my work. I was aware that before my enforced absence I had come across an article boldly entitled 'Emphasize your good points!' (nowadays it would be called 'Maximize your assets!', in deference to the market economy) which suggested that St John Collier's favoured publications were emerging from their post-war obedience, and were exchanging austerity for a certain tentative assertiveness. This in turn, but the thought must have been lying dormant, alerted me to the unpleasant fact that St John Collier was running out of time and myself with him. The pile of magazines had shrunk dramatically: my task was almost completed. I had no doubt that Muriel would keep me on for a bit, but she did not really need a full-time assistant. My task had been to devote my attention to St John Collier, and this I had done; editorial work simply amounted to putting the articles in chronological order. Changes of an unwelcome kind seemed to be inevitable. I resolved to ask Muriel whether it might be interesting...

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Verlag
Random House Inc
Erscheinungsdatum
2000
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
037550334X
ISBN 13 
9780375503344
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
231
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Purmerul LTD
https://strengholt.nl/en/

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