A Friend from England – Anita Brookner (1987) 172 pages
Anita Brookner is one of those authors I keep meaning to get back to. I was too young when I read Hotel du Lac; when I read Family and Friends for this project back in 2019 I knew the time was right. Despite this, I keep failing to pick her up! Hopefully A Friend from England signals the start of my more consistent reading of this striking and clear-sighted author.
The novella is essentially a character study of Rachel, a typical Brookner heroine.She is solitary and somewhat spiky, with the reader sensing more loneliness that she admits to.
She inherits her financial advisor Oscar from her deceased parents. When Oscar retires after winning a lot of money on the pools, Rachel visits him at home rather than his office.
“All the rooms seemed to repel both light and weather; they were designed to keep one’s thoughts indoors, resigned and melancholy.
[…]
I found it all very cosy. Although their life seemed to depress Oscar and his wife, both of whom had a vaguely disappointed air, I could see myself transformed into just such a virtuous member of just such a successful but melancholy family.”
Rachel starts attending Oscar and his wife Dorrie’s home regularly for dinner, and meets their daughter Heather, who it is clear the family are keen to see married and settled. (There was something oddly old-fashioned about A Friend from England, so much so that I went back to the beginning to double-check I hadn’t missed something about it being set in the early 1960s.)
No-one does a bitchy character summation like Brookner, and here is Rachel’s assessment of Heather:
“I could feel the force of her passive temperament, and I say temperament rather than personality, for there was little personality in evidence.”
Ouch!
Oscar and Dorrie seem keen for the two women to become friends, and Heather regularly drives Rachel home, but remains unknowable. This doesn’t particularly bother Rachel:
“I felt a genuine love for Heather’s parents, while feeling rather little for Heather herself. When I say rather little, I mean that I felt a full complement of boredom, irritation, tolerance, and reluctant affection for her.”
However, then Heather does what everyone expects, and gets engaged. Rachel is unsure of her choice:
“My first impression of Michael Sandberg was that he was blessed with, or consumed by, radiant high spirits. My second impression was that a man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.
[…]
Michael had a sort of sunniness about him which seemed to preclude any baffling depths of character: I thought that was probably just as well, for Heather, despite her shrewdness, seemed to have very little curiosity and might not have much patience with a difficult or troublesome man.”
The “shrewdness” which Rachel frequently attributes to Heather is a masterstroke by Brookner. As readers we never see any evidence of such a trait. No-one else observes Heather as being shrewd. We are more aware than Rachel that she has proclaimed this motivation to Heather’s behaviour because it makes sense to her. This misjudgement has a significant fallout later.
“I felt a spasm of distaste for her and for all those women like her, women who work for fun and marry for status, and still demand compensation. The only excuse for such women is incurable frivolity. And Heather was not even frivolous.”
[Slight spoilers ahead]
Heather’s marriage does fall apart (again, for a reason I found somewhat out of keeping with its late 1980s setting, unless the reason we’re shown is supposed to be a signifier of a deeper incompatibility.) But it is Rachel who begins to unravel. She has been insistent all along that her solitary life suits her, but this seems grounded in pain and avoidance rather than a life choice which makes her happy and fulfilled.
“The process of thinking does not become me. I feel my face growing longer, my eyes sinking deeper. Thinking, for me, is accompanied by a wave of sadness. Therefore I try to avoid introspection. I long ago decided to live my life on the surface, avoiding entanglements, confrontations, situations that cannot be quickly resolved, friendships that lead to passion.”
When Heather’s subsequent decisions do not fit with Rachel’s judgements of who she is or what she should do, we witness Rachel behaving more and more extremely, despite her distaste for drama. This observant, clever, discerning woman has completely failed to recognise that others could have considered and reached different values and different aspirations from her. The destabilisation which occurs suggests that Rachel wasn’t as secure in her life choices as she liked to believe.
A Friend from England is such a cleverly paced novel. The acerbic, domestic everyday gradually becomes something much darker and more devastating, with all the fault lines set up to fracture from the very beginning.
madame bibi lophile recommends 
I have exactly the same relationship with Anita Brookner; I do think I’m missing out and on the strength of this one I really should pick her up again soon.
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I really want to get back to her. The time is right and she’s such an impressive writer. I hope you enjoy whichever of hers you read next Jane!
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Like you, I read Brookner when I was far too young but haven’t returned to her work. I’m sure I’d get more out of her writing now.
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I’m definitely enjoying her more now than I’m older. I’ll be interested to know how you get on if you give her another try!
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I’m a huge Brookner fan, having read Hotel du Lac at exactly the right time in my life! For several years I devoured every Brookner novel as it was published but then for some reason drifted away from her work at around her mid-career point (bright side: I still have several novels left to read!) A Friend from England is one of my favorite Brookners (I have it down for a re-read some summer afternoon). Thanks for reminding me of what a great novel it is!
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Ah, well done for timing it so right! I was in my early 20s, completely the wrong time for me! Great to hear what a fan you are and how much you like this one. A re-read on a summer’s afternoon sounds perfect.
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I’m the same Madame B – I read Hotel du Lac when it won the Booker and didn’t get it, but I do feel I appreciate her much more nowadays. I have a sort of project to read her in order which I must pick up again – I think I’m a while away from reading this one!
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That’s a great project Kaggsy! I have a few loitering in the TBR but she was so prolific. I think this would be No.7 in her novels – I hope you enjoy it when you get to it 🙂
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I read a lot of early Brookners early on in my own life then I started catching up with the older characters she was writing about and found it all a bit depressing. I think her books DO feel old-fashioned and out of time, then you come across people who really do live those lives. A great one to choose for your project and you’re nearly done now – well done!
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That’s interesting that her novels feel old-fashioned, I’ll bear it in mind when I pick her up again.
Thanks so much Liz – yes, nearly there!
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It’s interesting that you felt it read like it was set in an earlier time because that was exactly what I felt about Hotel du Lac too, and I also remember flicking back to check if I’d missed something about it being set a few decades earlier. It seemed to me she was writing about her own youth and forgetting that the world had changed since then.
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Oh that is interesting FF! It seems like it is a bit of a theme with her writing.
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Ok, this is the most tempted I have been to return to Anita Brookner – not least because you also didn’t like Hotel du Lac. Maybe I was too young when I read it, as I found it tedious… but could be time to return to her.
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I keep meaning to re-read Hotel du Lac, to see if I’d get on better with it now. For me she’s definitely not a writer that suited me when I was younger. I hope you enjoy her more if you do return to her!
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She just seems like an ideal-Simon-selection! I feel sure it must have been a case of “right book, wrong time”. I was definitely too young when I read Hotel du Lac, too, but although I didn’t mind it, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about either. Often I dismissed writers with a spare style and simple language, not recognising how very challenging it is to be that succinct and deliberate in prose. (David Bergen is one of the Canadian writers I initially dismissed like this, but ohhhh, I was missing out there too. He’s probably not available overseas, but The Age of Hope is lovely and you both would likely enjoy it.) Mme Bee, you have made me want to sit down and swim in Brookner for weeks to come, reading and rereading.
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So pleased to have inspired a Brookner wallow! I’ll have a look and see if I can get any David Bergen over here, thank you for the recommendation.
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Brookner never disappoints. Definitely want to read this one.
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I hope you enjoy it! She’s such an incisive writer, Rachel’s characterisation was brilliantly observed.
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This isn’t my favourite Brookner, but nevertheless, her insights into human nature are always so keenly observed. I’m glad you’re getting back into her!
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Thanks Jacqui! I’m looking forward to reading further.
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