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December 11, 2001
AUTHOR: Anita Brookner: The twentieth book
Anita Brookner trained as an art historian, taught at the Courtauld until 1988 and won the Booker Prize for Hotel Du Lac. She rarely gives interviews
Observer: First, what is The bay of angels about?
Brookner: It is about the sort of misfortune that can come upon you without warning; which finds you totally bereft trying to get yourself out of it.
Obs: Was there a particular moment of inspiration?
AB: Well, the curious thing is that I didn’t intend to write it. I didn’t know I was going to write it, so it came upon me quite suddenly and quite easily and I enjoyed writing it. I’m sorry if it’s very bleak. I’m sorry if it’s mournful. I had a good time, that’s all I can say about it.
Obs: It’s your twentieth novel in about 20 years. Is that how you like to work - at the rate of a novel a year?
AB: I’d like to be writing all the time, but that’s not possible.
Obs: Why not?
AB: Lack of ideas, I suppose.
Obs: Where do you think your ideas come from?
AB: I wish I knew. I’d tap into them straight away. I think it’s mostly dreams and memories, isn’t it, as with all novelists? And a certain amount of observation, obviously.
Obs: Did you always want to be a novelist?
AB: No.
Obs: What made you switch from teaching?
AB: Well, I was a teacher most of my life, which I loved, I had a very happy working life and when I retired I thought I must do something and I’ve always read a lot of fiction, you learn so much from fiction. My sentimental education came mostly from fiction I should say, so I thought I’d try.
Obs: You’ve been very successful for a late starter.
AB: I wouldn’t say that. I’m not very popular, because they’re bleak and they’re mournful and all the rest of it and I get censorious reviews. But I’m only writing fiction. I’m not making munitions, so I think it’s acceptable.
Obs: In this book there are several references to art. How much does your art history influence your fiction, if at all?
AB: Not at all.
Obs: So you keep your art history and your fiction in separate compartments?
AB: Absolutely. Well, they keep themselves in separate compartments. I’m a member of the public these days. I go to the galleries and wander around like everybody else. I love it.
Obs: What did you read as a child?
AB: Ah! Dickens. My father fed me Dickens. Two novels for my birthday, two novels for Christmas until I’d read the lot. And after that I think it was H.G. Wells, for some reason. I’ve been talked about in the same context as Jane Austen. I didn’t stick that label on myself, other people did. Quite inaccurate. I’ve never got on very well with Jane Austen.
Obs: Where do you see yourself in the tradition of English literature?
AB: I don’t know anything like that. I’m a middle-class, middle-brow novelist. And that’s it. It amuses me.
Obs: With a middle-class audience?
AB: Yes. Mostly women, but the best letters I’ve had have been from men. One man said a marvellous thing. He said: ‘You write French novels’, which pleased me enormously.
Obs: Which foreign country are you most popular in?
AB: America. And France. I do better in America than I do here.
Obs: Who was your father?
AB: My father was a small businessman, extremely virtuous, not very successful. He had a number of enterprises. He had a lending library at one point, I remember, which was, of course, very congenial. My mother had been a professional singer in America. And they were a virtuous couple and very unhappy and that sent mixed messages, as you can imagine.
Obs: Were you close to your father?
AB: I was closer to my mother, but I loved them both. [Let me get you a cup of tea].
Obs: Who are the writers you admire now?
AB: I read a lot in French and I read the Russians. Here’s my favourite novel.
Obs: Oblomov.
AB: Yes. It’s about a man who fails at everything.
Obs: I confess I’ve never read it.
AB: It’s great. He fails at everything — not through any fault of his own, but through sheer inactivity. I learnt a terrific lesson there.
Obs: Do you think failure is a subject to which you’re drawn in your fiction?
AB: Much more interesting than success.
Obs: There’s a very powerful passage here. You write: ‘As a woman approaching middle age I know that certain changes are inevitable, but I may not always be as adaptable as I have so far proved to be. I feel very tired, cranky, inclined to insist on a life of my own. I miss children, as all middle-aged women do, if they’re childless’. Are your books, in some sense, your children?
AB: No. Not at all.
Obs: And do you identify with that passage?
AB: I think so.
Obs: The bay of angels is a book that the people who admire your work will recognize immediately.
AB: And denigrate.
Obs: Do you ever think of writing a different kind of book entirely?
AB: I wish I could, I wish I could, maybe it’ll come. I don’t know. I’ve no control over these things.
Obs: What would you do if you couldn’t write fiction?
AB: Read fiction.
Obs: So your life is really immersed in various kinds of fictional activity?
AB: Well, I live in the world, like everybody has to, and I go out, do the shopping, and do the cleaning — that sort of thing. See friends. I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.
Obs: And are you working on a new novel now?
AB: No.
Obs: Where will the next idea come from?
AB: I don’t know, that’s the point. I have no control. I’m a great believer in unconscious processes. They usually work.
Obs: When do you write?
AB: I start work at seven.
Obs: Pencil or pen?
AB: Pen.
Obs: In manuscript?
AB: I haven’t got any of these machines.
Obs: And do you type them up later on?
AB: Yes, I do that.
Obs: And how long do you write for?
AB: Two or three hours. I think about it most of the day.
Obs: All your books have this very intense atmosphere.
AB: That comes from the early reading, I think. One has left oneself behind, but it lingers.
Obs: Do you write quickly?
AB: Yes.
Obs: Do you revise a lot?
AB: No, not at all.
Obs: It feels that way, as a reader.
AB: Yes, only one draft.
Obs: So you’ve now finished the book, and you’re a free woman?
AB: Very boring.
Obs: You’re bored?
AB: Oh terribly. — Dawn/Observer news service
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