Making Things Better

by Anita Brookner

Book Overview

Facing life alone at an advanced age, Julius Herz cannot shake the sense that he should be elsewhere, doing other things. Walking through bustling streets that seem increasingly alien to him, he's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375508880
• ISBN13: 9780375508882
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

A Bit of a Disappointment

This is a short and well written story by Brookner, similar in style to some of her other novels. It is about an older man looking for the "next big thing." It is a very slow moving novel. Anita Brookner (born 1928) is an English novelist and art historian. She was born in London to Polish immigrant parents. Many of her novels feature links to other European countries and immigrants to the UK. Brookner was an only child and she never married. In her novels, many of her protagonists lead a solitary life, going through stages of emotional development. For example, her Booker novel Hotel du lac is about a novelist, Edith Hope, who is staying in a hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva. The book follows that pattern: she gets involved with the other guests and undergoes emotional changes. Also, her parents were secular Jews, and a few of her characters have Jewish connections. Without giving away the plot, the present novel follows the pattern again. But interestingly for the author it is an older man not a woman. Again, it is about a single person, now divorced, again who was an only child, and who grew up in Europe and moved to London. There are no moments of "high anxiety" in the story. It is low key but well written and concise. I liked her prose and would recommend the book for the prose alone. She is similar to a few other English writers such a Barbara Pym, but not identical. I was expecting a much better read. The book lacks drama, and was not as good as her other recent book Leaving Home. Even with the prose and the odd flashes of brilliance, it is not a great novel. There is little character development and little in the way of an entertaining plot. It is to be read and enjoyed for the writing as much as anything. Those who like her inward looking and self examining style might like the book.

BROOKNER'S BIG THING

If you're an Anita Brookner fan, you've probably already read this book. If you're not a Brookner fan, it's time you started up with her. Not only is she an outstanding storyteller, she's also a great psychologist. She's taught me much about the human condition. I've read all her novels except the latest one, and I intend to read it soon. I think she should receive a Nobel Prize. I can't say this book is one of her best, because they're all outstanding. What a mind she has. You cannot possibly go wrong with Anita Brookner.

Relentless loneliness

This is essentially a story of one person, whose world we see from inside. Julius Herz a seventy- three year old book- dealer tells the story of his life as he tries to understand 'what the next big thing 'in it may be. Of course one possibility for an elderly person is that the one 'big thing' will be what Henry James called ' the distinguished thing' . i.e. death. Although this would seem to make the dramatic center of the work the question of what will happen 'next' in Herz's life after he has been divorced, and after he has been made a generous gift by his landlord Ostovski. But in fact the tone and pace of the work does not really work towards 'dramatic suspense'. The work is a reflective one, one in which a largely solitary consciousness reflects upon his life- relations. There is in these reflections and in the whole being of Herz a sense of non- desparate loneliness, of a sadness at life not really having been siezed or made. As Herz contemplates his life from old- age it almost appears as if ' old- age' has dominated his life from the beginning. Brookner is as always perceptive and intelligent- and the pleasure of reading her is the pleasure of keen psychological insight. Yet the overall tone, the sadness, the inherent loneliness of the book made it for me , a quite cheerless reading experience.

The expectancies of old age

Mrs Brookner portrays the character of Julius Herz, a 73 year old Jewish gentleman whose parents were exiles to London from Germany shortly before the end of the Second World War. His father - and later Julius himself - used to work in a shop in Edgware Road belonging to one ebullient Ostrovski. Julius's brother Freddy showed an early talent for the violin so his parents were intent on making a prodigal performer out of him at all cost and despite the fact that that he was "sick before and after every performance" since the audience always attended his recitals as "a phenomenon, a fairground spectacle." Naturally the parents' disappointment was all the deeper when their "cherished prodigy" had to abandon his career as a violinist after a breakdown. Now that Julius is the only remaining of what used to be a family of four, he reflects on his life as he tries to get accustomed to his new flat in Chiltern Street, all the more so since new initiatives are no longer within his reach. He feels that the routine of his empty days bring him no reward, most of his actions being eternally undertaken with a sigh. After divorcing his wife Josie Burns, Julius no longer even has the heart for solitary holidays. He likes spending his time alone, aware that in solitude nobody but himself can register his decline, unable to dislodge his melancholia and almost feeling compelled by destiny to live like a recluse. Yet he knows that a solitary way of life is the only one that suits his temperament and so the time for reflecting over his past is ample. And these recollections Julius sees as a "lifetime of repeated episodes of defeat" which he considers as the essence of his sentimental education, a permanent reminder that he wasted his life. So for a man like Herz, is there going to be anything next but death, is there a next big thing to come? After closing the book, the reader may not know how to answer the question but perhaps this is beside the point because Mrs Brookner's achievement lies in the way she captures the anxieties due to old age, to a world becoming increasingly more alien because of its modernity and to memories of a lifetime one wishes one had spent in a different manner.

A Little Gem

I absentmindedly picked this book up from the library's new releases section and I was glad to have discovered this little gem. Anita Brookner is a fine author who conveys depth and poignancy without ever being trite or sympathetic. Ms. Brookner lets you into Hertz' lonely regretful world so completely it may change the way you view "older persons" from now. A fitting ending after so much postulating.