Book Review: Hotel Du Lac

             Hotel Du Lac is a romantic novel written by a Booker Prize winning author Anita Brookner. The main plot of the story centers on the romance of the main characters.  The Main characters are financially successful people whose notion of romance and love varies from character to character. I have a mix of opinions to this book.

            The story sets in the country side of Switzerland, with the ending of summer atmosphere seems calm and silent. The setting is timeless. Hotel Du Lac is located near a lake with an overview of the mountains ahead, which gives a sense a beauty and remoteness to the hotel.

The plot of the story revolves around, Edith Hope is an author of romantic novels, pen named “Veronica Wilde”, who aborts her marriage and is sent away to a hotel named Hotel Du Lac by her friends, so that she would think about what she has done and would change. The silence of the hotel and the guests in the hotel from various walks of life, make Edith question herself and her actions. During her stay at the hotel, she gets to know about the guests’ lives and their romantic views.  A guest named Mr. Neville seeks attention of Edith. At first she refused any possibility of relationship between them but as her time in the hotel passed, she begins to be interested of Mr. Neville and his views of life. He asked her to marry which she secretly accepts but Mr. Neville could not recognize it. As the story emerges, she finds out the Mr. Neville is not different than any other men that she knew, when she sees him emerging from Jennifer’s room in the morning of the day that they are about to leave. She decides not to change and returns back to her former self.

The Main characters of the Story are as follows. Edith is a romantic novelist residing in London, and sent off to exile in Hotel Du Lac. Her romance is based on not being tied down by marriage and her lover would be available in every evening for her to make love. Mrs. Pusey and her daughter, Jennifer, are guests who are on their usual holiday in the hotel.  Their romance is on men, whom they consider equals and have self-respect. Mrs. Pusey is a widow, who relies on the fortune that her husband had left when he died. Mrs Pusey and Jennifer live a splendid life and always go for shopping. Monica is being forced to stay at the hotel because of her husband’s demands as her husband is the heir to a throne and he does not want her unusual behavior ruin his chances. She is a gold digger and her romance is centered on people who have a good fortune. Mme de Bonneuil is an old lady staying at the hotel because she cannot stand living in the same house as her son’s wife. Mr. Neville is an Englishman staying at the hotel after he had attended a conference in Geneva. He is an owner of a successful electronic company. His romance is toward women who have views toward the word that are not common in most women and would not hurt him as his former wife had done.

            My opinion on this book is that storyline and setting is more calm and peaceful than any other romantic novel that I have read up to now but the timeline of events made me confused. The author had made the setting very much calm and well described that it does not make the mind wonder what kind of setting is this and whether romance can be fell in a setting like this. There is not much action so I could imagine the romance involved in the story more than the previous books that I have read. The themes of the events have introduced well so it did not made me confused of what is happening.  However, the sudden flash backs of memories made me wonder which time period is a particular event is happening. They made me confused of the chronological order. These are my opinions of the book.

           

To conclude, Hotel Du Lac was a splendid romantic novel written by Anita Brookner. The plot centered on the romance of six main characters of different walks of life and I had mixed opinions about the book.