This month we’re reading a book requested by several Goldster members, the modern classic Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. It was published in 1984, and won the Booker Prize in the same year. Two years later, it was made into a TV film, which some members may have watched?
The novel tells the story of Edith Hope, a romantic novelist, who arrives at the uppercrust Hotel du Lac at a very difficult time in her life. Her complicated love life has made living in England very difficult, and has caused her to be “banished” by her friends. Determined to live her life as she wants to – not as she is expected to – she finds herself amongst a new world of pampered women, minor nobility and eligible men.
By turns humorous and sad, this is not the kind of book Edith Hope herself would have written, as it follows no norms of romantic fiction. Instead we see the world through Edith’s eyes and the lives of her fellow guests: the flawed, the spoilt, the damaged, and the lonely.
These Book Club events are not recorded, everyone is unmuted and everyone gets the chance to meet others in the Goldster community. Join Lucinda and your fellow Goldster members at 1pm on Tuesday 25 February.