I’m halfway finished reading Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. Yesterday I watched the film based on the book. The story is somewhat sad and unresolved. Now I’m not sure that I want to finish the book.
Hotel du Lac is the story of Edith Hope (that last name tells it all) who is having an affair with a married man, David. One day Edith shows up at a party and finds David there with his wife. Edith watches the couple who seem to be very affectionate. They’re talking about their vacation plans. Crushed, Edith decides to accept the marriage proposal of a decent but boring man. However, on the way to her wedding, she freaks out. As she’s about to pass in front of the church where everyone is waiting for her, she realizes she can’t marry the decent but boring guy so she tells the cab driver not to stop and to keep on driving. Her wanna be husband sees her drive by and is humiliated. Her friends, scandalized by Edith’s behavior, insist that she leave town for a while. Edith, not feeling that she has much of a choice, leaves for Switzerland to stay at a fading hotel on Lake Geneva. It is off-season and the few guests there seem to be just as displaced as Edith is.
The format that Brookner generally uses in her novels is that of having the protagonist, a lonely spinster, look for a place to safely anchor. But is marriage a solution? Many of the hotel guests at Hotel du Lac are married or have been married. But the kind of relationships they’ve had with their mates makes me think of an Italian expression “meglio soli che mal accompagnati”—better alone than badly accompanied. Mrs. Pursley, now widowed, is suffocating her daughter’s independence just to keep from being alone. Mme de Bonneuil, also widowed, has been evicted from her home by her son and daughter-in-law because they can’t be bothered with an elderly woman. Monica is very beautiful but hasn’t produced an heir. Her husband tells her to become fertile or prepare to be dumped. Mr. Neville is charming and rich but that didn’t keep his wife from running off with a much younger man.
A basic insecurity shared by Anita’s protagonists is that a woman can’t be happy on her own. But marriage doesn’t necessarily protect you from solitude. A relationship is no promise of a happy life.
It wasn’t until she was 53 that she began writing novels. Anita’s prose is clean-cut and crisp. She also has the capacity to observe people with forensic accuracy. Afterall, she was an art historian and wrote about art. And to write about art, you must be good at describing.
In her novels, Anita often makes references to art. In Hotel du Lac, David is seen in his auction room selling a painting attributed to Francesco Furini, “Time Revealing Truth.” When I saw Furini’s name, I flashed back to the first time I saw one of his paintings. It was “Santa Lucia” at the Galleria Spada in Rome. The painting shows a woman with her back turned from the viewer. She is holding up a pair of eyes.
Lucia of Syracuse died during the Diocletianic persecution. And it was basically the fault of her beauty and of her family’s wealth. After the death of her father, Lucia’s mom, Eutychia, wanted to make sure that her daughter would be taken care of in the future so she arranged a marriage between Lucia and a young man from a wealthy pagan family. But unknown to her, Lucia had already consecrated her virginity to God and had no intentions of marrying.
When Eutychia suffered from a bleeding disorder, Lucia took her to Catania to pray at the shrine of St. Agatha. Once her mom was cured, Licia convinced her to convert and distribute their wealth among the poor. But Lucia’s suitor was afraid that all his fiancée’s patrimony would be given away with nothing left for him. So he squealed to the governor that Lucia was a Christian. The governor ordered Lucia to make an offering to the governor and, when she refused, he sentenced her to be defiled at a brothel. The guards came to take Lucia away but they were unable to move her. They even tried to set her on fire but she wouldn’t burn. Finally, they thrusted a sword into her throat and Lucia died.
Lucia is known as the saint without the eyes. It’s not known if she poked them out herself so her suitor wouldn’t want her anymore or because, before her death, she was tortured by eye gouging. But when Lucia’s body was taken to the family tomb, it was discovered that her eyes had been miraculously restored. And for this she is now considered the patron saint of the blind.
Lucia’s relics were scattered around—Venice, Sicily, Rome, etc. In 1981, thieves stole her bones from San Geremia in Venice but the relics were recovered in time for her feast day, December 13.
Hotel du Lac, the book on Archive.org
Hotel du Lac, the film on YouTube
