Brief Lives by Anita Brookner
"Brief Lives" is a novel by Anita Brookner that explores the intertwined lives of two women, Fay Langdon and Julia Morton, as narrated by Fay. The story begins with Fay learning of Julia’s death, prompting reflections on her own life. Fay, raised in a loving family, initially finds joy in her career as a singer but faces disillusionment after marrying Owen Langdon, whose shallow pursuits and unfaithfulness leave her feeling isolated and unfulfilled. The arrival of Julia, a glamorous and once-celebrated comedienne, brings complexity to Fay's existence, as their friendship is marked by a balance of service and dependence, particularly against the backdrop of Owen's untimely death and Fay's subsequent affair with Julia's husband, Charlie.
Throughout the narrative, Brookner delves into themes of female companionship, powerlessness, and the societal expectations placed on women. Fay’s journey reflects on the search for happiness amidst turmoil and loneliness, ultimately leading her to confront the realities of aging and solitude. The novel addresses women's issues without conforming strictly to feminist ideals, portraying characters that embody both strength and vulnerability. By the end, Fay recognizes her own resilience as she faces an uncertain future alone, evoking a poignant reflection on love, loss, and the passage of time.
Subject Terms
Brief Lives by Anita Brookner
First published: 1990, in Great Britain (first pb. in US, 1991)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of work: The 1930’s to the late 1980’s
Locale: London, England
Principal Characters:
Fay Langdon , the narratorJulia Morton , the wife of Charlie Morton, Fay’s loverCharlie Morton , a fashionable lawyer and Fay’s loverOwen Langdon , Fay’s husbandMaureen Luckham , a devoted flunky to JuliaGerald , Julia’s brotherMillie Savage , a singer from Fay’s radio daysAlan Carter , Fay’s physician
Form and Content
Brief Lives is the story of two women, Fay Langdon and Julia Morton, as related by Fay herself. The novel begins as Fay reads of Julia’s death in a newspaper. After the first chapter, Fay tells of her own life with fairly strict chronology, interrupted only by passages of remembrance and reflection.
Fay was the only child of happy parents who gave her a happy life. She especially loved her father, an amiable and easygoing man who ran a motion-picture theater. Films, especially Hollywood musicals of the 1930’s, shaped her parents’ lives. Both Fay and her mother believed that a plucky lower-class girl could, by singing and dancing, win the wellborn hero’s heart. Therefore, Fay trained as a singer. She was happy even after she moved away from home and entered show business. She shared a flat with a sweet and sensible girl named Millie Savage and sang on a radio program for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Yet happiness cannot last in realistic novels. First her father died, and then she married Owen Langdon, a handsome, dashing war hero. Fay sensed trouble when she met his mother, a grotesque widow who lived only for Owen, gin, and playing bridge. Fay worried when she moved into Owen’s London house, hideously decorated by his former wife. Although Fay gave up singing and became a dutiful wife, she was not happy. Owen, a lawyer, often left her alone while he worked in the south of France. He was obsessed with the lives of the tycoons with whom he associated; when Fay cooked fine dinners for them, they snubbed her. Owen’s dealings were shady: Fay found rolls of cash hidden in his sock drawer. On the personal level, the marriage was also bad; Owen shrank from intimacy.
Then Julia entered Fay’s life. Julia’s husband, Charlie Morton, was a senior partner in Owen’s law firm. Julia had been a fashionable and elegant comedienne—beautiful, legendary, a taker of many lovers. At her home, which she rarely left, Julia possessed a court of employees/friends/sycophants. Fay’s friendship with Julia was also based on service. Encouraged by Owen for reasons of office politics, Fay visited Julia often and did errands for her. Then two events changed Fay’s life. First, Owen died in an automobile accident. Second, when Fay moved into a flat of her own, Charlie Morton helped her, they kissed, and six years of adultery began.
The affair gave new life to Fay. Charlie was affectionate and warm, and she devoted her life to him. He was nothing if not discreet, and Julia did not appear to know what was happening. Sadly, Fay suspected that to Charlie the affair was more a recreation than anything else, and her moderate happiness was cut short by Charlie’s death.
Fay still felt a strange bond with Julia and often visited her. Julia was almost immobilized now in her flat, depending on flunkies such as the sycophantic Maureen Luckham and her one-time dresser Pearl to attend to her needs, not all of them pretty. Fay also began to make a new life by doing volunteer work, and she met Dr. Alan Carter, a witty, cynical, and oddly attractive man. Once again, even though she knew that Carter had no tinge of romance, she began to hope for limited happiness. All these relationships came to a head when Julia disrupted Fay’s preparations for a dinner with Carter; the disaster in Fay’s kitchen precipitated his abrupt departure.
Fay arranged for Julia to live with her brother, Gerald, in Spain. She, Pearl, and Julia had a riotous dinner before Julia was packed off. Returning to the present, Fay reveals that Julia has died and that she is alone. She knows that she is an old woman. She will not let the songs of her youth move her any more. She is glad she has no children, because she has no occasion to weep. Fay faces death with fortitude.
Context
Though its themes transcend distinctions of gender and time, Brookner’s Brief Lives is very much concerned with women’s issues. As in other novels, she evokes what critics have called a particularly feminine sense of powerlessness at a particular point in history. Fay, for example, often contrasts herself to younger, assertive, and accomplished women. Fay has been a woman of her age, in that she quit work when she married and spent most of her life cooking for men and waiting for them to come home to her.
Fay seems somewhat happier than many Brookner heroines. She sought happiness through men: Fay married a man who satisfied her intermittently, and she took a married lover who was quite a bit nicer than most. They die, but she knows that she has been lucky. “What most women want,” she writes, “I once had.” Nevertheless, like most other Brookner heroines, she ends up alone. She must face the bleakness of a loveless world with intelligence and a modest strength.
The novel’s emphasis on women is seen when women gather in small groups in almost every chapter. Both Fay’s mother and her mother-in-law (and Millie’s and Julia’s mothers) must be visited. Fay herself exchanges visits with Millie or has lunch or tea with another woman. Julia’s flat is always a gathering place for women who provide a spectrum of unhappiness: Maureen, the woebegone, churchgoing slave to Julia; Pearl Chesney, Julia’s sweet dresser from the old days; and Fay herself. When Julia is about to leave for Spain, three old ladies have a drunken farewell dinner.
Brookner has become increasingly aware of her odd position in women’s literature. Although Brief Lives is concerned with women, it is not a doctrinaire feminist novel. In fact, it can be seen as an answer to critics. Its male characters are not totally admirable, but neither are most of the women. Fay herself realizes that in her submissiveness and dependence, she will irritate many women and most feminists. Yet Fay may be less objectionable than some earlier Brookner heroines, in that her yearnings for romance are fully articulated only in the films and popular songs of her youth. Her later yearnings are muted, and as she approaches the end of her life, she seems beyond such desires.
Bibliography
The Atlantic. CCLXVIII, September, 1991, p. 124. A review of Brief Lives.
Chicago Tribune. July 14, 1991, XIV, p. 6. A review of Brief Lives.
The Christian Science Monitor. August 5, 1991, p. 13. A review of Brief Lives.
Hosmer, Robert E., Jr., ed. Contemporary British Women Writers: Narrative Strategies. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Hosmer’s essay discusses Brookner and her heroines as exiles. Provides background for reading Brief Lives. A good bibliography is included.
Kenyon, Olga. Women Novelists Today: A Survey of English Writing in the Seventies and Eighties. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. According to Kenyon, among contemporary women novelists Brookner is a special case: She understands feminism, but her heroines usually remain within the confines of the traditional women’s novel.
Kenyon, Olga. Women Writers Talk: Interviews with Ten Women Writers. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1990. Includes an interesting interview with Brookner on how she writes and how she began to write.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. July 7, 1991, p. 3. A review of Brief Lives.
The Nation. CCLIII, September 9, 1991, p. 274. A review of Brief Lives.
New Statesman and Society. III, August 31, 1990, p. 35. A review of Brief Lives.
The New York Times Book Review. XCVI, July 21, 1991, p. 14. A review of Brief Lives.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXXVIII, April 12, 1991, p. 44. A review of Brief Lives.
Sadler, Lynn Veach. Anita Brookner. Boston: Twayne, 1990. A very useful opening chapter surveys Brookner’s life and works in detail. Written before Brief Lives.
Skinner, John. The Fictions of Anita Brookner: Illusions of Romance. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. The introduction treats critical opinions, Brookner’s intellectual background, and the autobiographical nature of her works. A demanding and a stimulating book, although it does not treat Brief Lives specifically.
Time. CXXXVII, June 24, 1991, p. 65. A review of Brief Lives.
The Times Literary Supplement. August 24, 1990, p. 889. A review of Brief Lives.
The Washington Post Book World. XXI, July 28, 1991, p. 12. A review of Brief Lives.