The Misalliance by Anita Brookner

First published: 1986

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of work: The 1980’s

Locale: London

Principal Characters:

• Blanche Vernon, a lonely woman, the divorced wife of Hubert “Bertie” Vernon
• Hubert (“Bertie”) Vernon, the wealthy head of a real-estate firm who left Blanche for a younger woman
• Amanda (“Mousie”), Bertie’s beautiful, spoiled, and shallow secretary, who lives with him
• Sally Beamish, the stepmother of Elinor and the wife of Paul
• Elinor (“Nellie”) Beamish, the three-year-old daughter of Paul and the object of Blanche’s affections
• Patrick Fox, a civil servant who had been in love with Blanche but pathetically falls for Sally
• Phyllis Duff, the wife of Blanche’s dentist

Form and Content

The Misalliance tells of Blanche Vernon’s life from April to autumn in the year following her divorce. The story proceeds chronologically, but Anita Brookner interrupts with flashbacks to explain the past and with many reflections by Blanche herself. The reader asks what Blanche must ask: What satisfactions are there for a middle-aged, divorced woman who has limited herself by her marriage but who cannot stop hoping that life has more to offer?

Blanche lives in an expensive flat in a good neighborhood in southwest London. She fights off feelings of bafflement and worthlessness by resorting to daily rituals: dressing well, going to museums, shopping, cooking simple meals, and drinking more wine than she should. Although she feels lonely, especially standing by her bedroom window at night, she is not alone. Her cleaning lady takes good care of her. Bertie’s sister Barbara calls her every evening. She does volunteer work at a local hospital.

The complications of her life begin one day at the hospital, when she sees a small child and her mother. The child, perhaps three years old, is self-possessed and quiet; the mother—young, slatternly, stunning, loosely and exotically dressed—is the opposite. Blanche feels impelled to talk to them; she discovers that the child, Elinor, though normal in every other way, does not speak. She finds out also that the mother, Sally Beamish, is actually the child’s stepmother; her husband Paul is in France, working in some unspecified capacity for a rich American couple.

When the chance arises to take care of Elinor for a few hours, Blanche jumps at it. She is moved by the girl’s trusting and perhaps loving hand in hers as they walk to her flat. Soon Blanche is visiting Sally and Elinor, and the pattern is set. Blanche is allowed to listen to Sally’s listless complaints that the world withholds the luxuries she deserves; in return, Blanche is allowed to bring Elinor gifts. When Sally hints that cash would be welcome, Blanche obliges.

Blanche knows that she is being used. When Elinor is sent away to her grandmother, Blanche tries to extricate herself from the relationship. It is not easy. To help Sally qualify for government help, Blanche initiates another level of complication: She calls an old friend, Patrick Fox, for help. Patrick, who was once in love with Blanche, is thought to be a confirmed bachelor, but while sorting out Sally’s problems, he falls in love with her.

While Brookner tells this story, she also tells the reader about Bertie and Mousie: how Bertie first comforted her, how she used her girlish devices to get his attention at a terrible dinner party, how she and Bertie live in a less-good part of London, and how they have a less-than-satisfactory holiday on Corfu.

Blanche’s involvement reaches its nadir when she is persuaded to visit Sally’s husband and discovers that the ineffectual and parasitic Paul is incapable of sustaining his marriage. A migraine headache lays Blanche low, but her fortunes begin to rise. Mrs. Duff kindly nurses her. Her cleaning lady and her sister-in-law both return from their holidays. So does Bertie.

Blanche rallies. She visits Sally, who is sending Elinor away and going off with a friend, and says goodbye. She says goodbye also to Elinor, who is reported to have spoken but who seems not to remember her bond with Blanche. She turns down Sally’s last impertinent request. Exhilarated by her decisiveness, she has her hair cut short and books a flight to Paris. She can live where she likes and do what she wishes. Hours before she is to leave, however, Bertie walks in. He has returned to her, but the reader wonders whether this is a good thing.

Context

The Misalliance provides several perspectives on women’s issues. In its central character, it treats a particularly feminine kind of loneliness. Both men and women are lonely, but Brookner implies that a woman’s loneliness often combines with feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness. Moreover, Blanche seems like yesterday’s woman: She shops and cooks, she has no job, and she is painfully conscious of bathing and of wearing the right clothes, especially if a man is to visit. When Brookner contrasts her with Mousie and Sally, she makes a familiar comparison.

Blanche is paradoxical. She admires her neighbor Mrs. Duff, but she is determined not to become like her, a conventional matron. Although the central character of The Misalliance is a woman who conventionally loves a man, she judges accurately his cruelty to her and his lack of understanding. She can dissect his character with acid wit, and do so to his face. Yet she wants him back. In this way, Brookner writes in the tradition of the Brontës, in which the ways of love are controlled by passions, not ideals.

Brookner has transformed what could have been simply a moving modern study of a defeated divorcée into a postmodern critique of a kind of feminist trap. Brookner implies that Blanche’s fictions do not tell the whole story, that the system of symbols Blanche erects, while illuminating some things, obscures others. Blanche comes to realize this too, and she finally resists being trapped in her own system, a system that encourages self-pity. She breaks out of her role as dutiful, altruistic loser and begins to please herself. Then she becomes a winner. Brookner has written a novel about a woman’s predicament which is also a useful critique of some kinds of women’s stories.

Bibliography

Hosmer, Robert E., Jr., ed. Contemporary British Women Writers: Narrative Strategies. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Hosmer’s own essay emphasizes Brookner as an artist in exile but does not discuss The Misalliance. Good bibliography.

Kenyon, Olga. Women Novelists Today: A Survey of English Writing in the Seventies and Eighties. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. Among contemporary women novelists, Brookner is a special case: She understands feminism, but her heroines usually remain within the confines of the traditional woman’s novel. Does not treat The Misalliance specifically.

Kenyon, Olga. Women Writers Talk: Interviews with Ten Women Writers. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1990. Includes an interview with Brookner. No mention is made of The Misalliance, but there are many revealing comments.

Sadler, Lynn Veach. Anita Brookner. Boston: Twayne, 1990. A very useful opening chapter surveys Brookner’s life and works. The chapter on The Misalliance presents a richly detailed argument stressing Brookner’s continuum of female and male types. Sadler illuminates the correspondences between art and life and is particularly good on Blanche as a likable heroine.

Skinner, John. The Fictions of Anita Brookner: Illusions of Romance. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. The introduction discusses critical reactions to Brookner’s novels, her own intellectual background, and the autobiographical nature of her works. The section on The Misalliance sees Bertie’s return as a defeat for Blanche.

Waugh, Patricia. Feminine Fictions: Revisiting the Postmodern. London: Routledge, 1989. Does not focus on The Misalliance, but discusses Brookner in the light of feminist psychoanalysis.