A Private View - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Anita Brookner (Paperback)

About the Book

Brookner explores the complications that arise when one solitary man comes up against a woman who seems determined to invade his solitude. George Bland is an aging bachelor whose existence has been virtually a mirror image of his name--up until now. For into George's life walks Katy Gibb, young, abrasively self-assured, who incites in George the most alarming feelings.

Book Synopsis

Modest, reliable, decorous George Bland faces retirement, surprised to find himself suddenly alone and uncertain. His solitude is brusquely overturned when the mercurial and invasive Katy Gibb appears. By turn sulky girl and sultry woman, Katy embodies an attitude of entitlement quite foreign to Bland, yet she also appears to offer a last chance for adventure, for abandoning the weight of a lifetime of discretion and responsibility. In the contest of wills that follows, Bland discovers his true nature, his capacity for compromise and self-deception. The result is a novel rich in understanding of human complexity and of the desire to take charge of one's own destiny.

Review Quotes

"Devastating...Her tending to language, as we've come to expect, is loving, cutting and exact." --The Montreal Gazette

"A narrative of subtleties and nuances, reminiscent of the narratives of the later Henry James." --The Toronto Star

"Elegant...Her poetry of forlornness is stronger and stranger than ever. Brightness falls from the air everywhere in this novel." --Hermione Lee, The New Yorker

About the Author

Anita Brookner was born in London and, apart from several years in Paris, has lived there ever since. She trained as an art historian and taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art until 1988.