A new Anita Brookner is unlikely to surprise, unlikely to shock or disturb. Yet her fiction remains utterly compelling. Undue Influence, her 19th novel, follows the usual pattern: a single, bookish woman, whose life is dominated by loneliness and the seeming impossibility of marriage, has her forlorn equilibrium disturbed by an unsuitable attraction. At 29, Claire Pitt is one of Brookner's younger alter egos--financially independent, clever, emancipated but empty. When she sees Martin Gibson in the secondhand bookshop where she works, Claire is beguiled. I looked at my watch and realized that he had been silently reading for thirty-five minutes. By this time he could have had one or two of Heine's poems off by heart. Either that or he was translating them. Perhaps he too was a man of letters. But he looked too ineffable, and also too unhappy, for that. I altered my estimate of him. He was a dilettante, a caste I had always admired. Soon, Claire's desire to be part of the story she tells herself about Martin's probable life leads her to provoke the quiet crisis so indicative of a Brookner dénouement.

This gifted author, who is seen by some critics as the embodiment of Jamesian exactitude, is really quite the opposite. An almost pathological writer, Brookner returns again and again to her notion of the inability of women to think of marriage as something that will rescue them--and yet they are pulled toward the ideal (one they easily deconstruct) of a romantic savior. A particular, melancholic despondence saturates her work, and disappointment dominates, despite the humor, erudition, and classical elegance of her prose. Brookner is a modern, bitter writer. Few novelists have the ability to create such complete characters and then dissect their motives so clearly. Even fewer have the skill to delineate the emotional complexity of the domesticated manners that mark our inability to communicate with one other. Undue Influence is another triumph of profound psychological investigation--and perception--from one of England's finest writers. --Mark Thwaite

From Publishers Weekly
To 29-year-old Claire Pitt, a self-contained single woman living in London, her mother's death is more than an ordinary bereavement: it is the beginning of a process of self-doubt and a failure of nerve. Left alone in the apartment that she and her mother shared, Claire gradually realizes that she craves "the permanence of someone's affections"Aand the state of marriage, which she has always despised. Having vaguely pitied her widowed mother, Claire now feels sorry for the elderly spinster she works for at a second-hand bookstore. Faintly hoping to avoid these two women's lonely fates, Claire now sees that she is as alone and vulnerable as they were, and that her sexual freedomAexercised in quick, anonymous couplings that she initiates and then abandonsAhas not given her any basis for a lasting relationship. Opportunity seems to appear when Martin Gibson, a handsome, wealthy, but shallow and self-absorbed ex-professor, comes into the bookstore. When Martin's invalid wife dies soon afterwards, Claire sets her cap for him and fantasizes the life she will haveAnotwithstanding her skeptical nature and the absence of love on both sides. In Brookner's expert hands, Claire's realization that weak, unworthy Martin will not neatly fulfill her dreams is accomplished with lapidarian skill. At first Claire is complacent about her own shortcomings ("I'd lay claim to few moral qualities"), but she has no qualms about her behavior. She is an opportunist who views the world through ironic eyes. Yet Brookner's portrait of Claire's disillusionment and growing fear, as she descends from a competent independence to a state of frightened wandering in the heart's desert, is etched with quiet compassion. The novel contains a fine brace of supporting characters whose behavior implicitly reflects on Claire's fall into limbo, and Brookner's narrative skill works like a scalpel exposing the complexity of each of their lives. As she has done many times before (Falling Slowly, etc.), but never with more acuity or grace, Brookner illuminates the inner turmoil of lonely people living courageously while the door to the future begins to swing closed. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
From the measured pace, mannered speech, and air of chilly reserve, it is instantly apparent that this is a Brookner novel. As usual, the heroine, a middle- aged spinster, is unloved and nearly friendless. Having come through her father's long illness and her mother's recent death, Claire Pitt faces mid-life longing for a significant attachment. She works in a used bookshop, sorting through the papers of the owner's father, which chronicled his largely uneventful life and observations. Into her musty basement one morning comes a handsome stranger, Martin Gibson, seeking out a novel by Fontane. On the pretext of delivering the book to his home, Claire becomes enmeshed in his life and his marriage to a sickly wife. The weird and wealthy Gibsons begin to occupy a new corner of Claire's life and provide a spark of previously unknown drama. Always admirable for style and insight, Anita Brookner's novels are so similar and so slight, they beg the question: Does anyone still read her? Recommended for diehards.-ABarbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Kingston, Ontario Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Wendy Steiner
An author hiding behind a first-person narrator is all-powerful and at the same time blameless, depicting an ugly reality under the blind of another's flawed consciousness.

From AudioFile
Anita Brookner's novels are about people on the fringe of society, not due to subversive ideas, but because they are old or shy and time and society has passed them by. This heroine, Claire Pitt, is a mere 29-years old, but she's already a confirmed spinster. Diana Quick's voice, timbre and pace are of an older and whinier woman, so the listener has to remind herself that Claire is a young and attactive woman. This is irksome, because Claire does think and act with a modern outlook toward sexuality, upon which hangs the plot. B.H.B. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Kirkus Reviews
This 19th novel by Brookner (Falling Slowly,1999, etc.) suggests that the prolific author may have mined as much as possible from her most persistent theme. Always the great anatomist of anomie, Brookner has charted how fear, self-absorption, and family-inflicted wounds keep people isolated from one another. Shes created some memorableeven tragiccharacters and traced with great exactness the ways they try, and almost always fail, to break out of the isolation that so bedevils them. Claire Pitt, the young-woman narrator here, is another version of this archetypal Brooknerian figure. The only child of a loveless union, Claire has, like many Brookner protagonists, a lively intelligence, largely used to meditate on various kinds of human folly and speculate on others secret flaws. She describes herself as ``a hunger artist whose hunger is rarely satisfied.'' At her job in a used bookstore, Claire encounters the handsome, reticent Martin Gibson, who has wandered in. She manufactures a reason to visit his home, where she meets his domineering, older, ailing wife and learns about Martin's past as an academic. When his wife dies, Claire steadily pursues the maddeningly elusive Martin. Although they become lovers, he remains shadowy, only grudgingly divulging any of his plans or hopes. Claire, despite believing she is not destined for the happiness of a settled life, begins to entertain ideas of marrying Martin. Its to Brookner's credit that the depth of Martin's duplicity, when its disclosed, is quite startling. Claire, however, is too chilly and vague a figure (the reader learns much about what she thinks but virtually nothing about the specifics of her past, or even her appearance) to elicit the sympathy Brookner appears to think she deserves. She seems more a symptom than a person. Brookner's supple, precise prose, and her special sense of the ways in which people reveal and disguise themselves, are still in evidence. Yet, ultimately, they seem in the service here of a theme that she, on the basis of this dry, unmoving book, may finally have exhausted. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
Praise for Anita Brookner

"        Brookner's impeccable craftsmanship and worldly irony make each of her novels memorable."                                                            --Publishers Weekly

"        One of the very few contemporary authors whose novels deserve to live on well into the next century."       --The Washington Post Book World

"        Brookner's control over the material is absolute."   --Jane Smiley

"        Anita Brookner works a spell on the reader; being under it is both an   education and a delight."    -- The Washington Post Book World

"        If Henry James were around, the only writer he'd be reading with complete approval would be Anita Brookner."    --The New York Times Book Review

"        Brookner is a writer of great skill and precision. Passages of brilliant writing abound, hard-won insights that startle us with Brookner's clarity and succinct intelligence."       --Michael Dorris, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Review
Praise for Anita Brookner

"        Brookner's impeccable craftsmanship and worldly irony make each of her novels memorable."                                                            --Publishers Weekly

"        One of the very few contemporary authors whose novels deserve to live on well into the next century."       --The Washington Post Book World

"        Brookner's control over the material is absolute."   --Jane Smiley

"        Anita Brookner works a spell on the reader; being under it is both an   education and a delight."    -- The Washington Post Book World

"        If Henry James were around, the only writer he'd be reading with complete approval would be Anita Brookner."    --The New York Times Book Review

"        Brookner is a writer of great skill and precision. Passages of brilliant writing abound, hard-won insights that startle us with Brookner's clarity and succinct intelligence."       --Michael Dorris, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Book Description
This superb new novel by the author who has been called "one of the finest novelists of her generation" (The New York Times) tells the story of Claire Pitt, a young woman who has lived most of her life under the watchful eyes of her parents. After her mother's death, Claire reexamines her day-to-day routine and her future in her London flat. She passes the time working in a bookstore, where she meets a mysterious and attractive young man whose wife is ill, and they begin a relationship that dramatically alters Claire's vision of herself, her past, and her future.

         "Under Brookner's transforming eye, the most ordinary lives become engrossing adventures," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, and in Undue Influence Brookner once again combines the exquisite writing and astute psychological perception for which she's famous.

























From the Inside Flap
This superb new novel by the author who has been called "one of the finest novelists of her generation" (The New York Times) tells the story of Claire Pitt, a young woman who has lived most of her life under the watchful eyes of her parents. After her mother's death, Claire reexamines her day-to-day routine and her future in her London flat. She passes the time working in a bookstore, where she meets a mysterious and attractive young man whose wife is ill, and they begin a relationship that dramatically alters Claire's vision of herself, her past, and her future.

          "Under Brookner's transforming eye, the most ordinary lives become engrossing adventures," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, and in Undue Influence Brookner once again combines the exquisite writing and astute psychological perception for which she's famous.

From the Back Cover
Praise for Anita Brookner

"        Brookner's impeccable craftsmanship and worldly irony make each of her novels memorable."--Publishers Weekly

"        One of the very few contemporary authors whose novels deserve to live on well into the next century."--The Washington Post Book World

"        Brookner's control over the material is absolute." --Jane Smiley

"        Anita Brookner works a spell on the reader; being under it is both an education and a delight."-- The Washington Post Book World

"        If Henry James were around, the only writer he'd be reading with complete approval would be Anita Brookner."--The New York Times Book Review

"        Brookner is a writer of great skill and precision. Passages of brilliant writing abound, hard-won insights that startle us with Brookner's clarity and succinct intelligence."--Michael Dorris, Los Angeles Times Book Review


About the Author
Anita Brookner is the author of nineteen finely crafted novels, including Falling Slowly, Visitors, and Hotel du Lac, which won the Booker Prize. An international authority on eighteenth-century painting, she became the first female Slade Professor at Cambridge University. She lives in London.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
At first the man in the basement looked to me like an older and more careworn version of the man with bowed head in the cafe in Marylebone Lane who was not Mrs Hildreth's son and for whom I had imagined a whole illusory history. (I am not infallible.) This man had the same air of lassitude, which I detected in spite of his polished appearance. He was formally dressed for his visit to a dusty bookshop, although he could not have known that it would be quite so dusty. He wore a finely tailored grey suit with a faint chalk stripe, a very white shirt, and highly polished shoes. I think it was the brilliantly laundered shirt that led me to make the comparison with Mrs Hildreth's putative son, as if this man too had emerged from the hands of a watchful woman and set out, fully caparisoned, to encounter the hazards of the ordinary working day.

Except that this man obviously had no connection with the world of work: he was too careful, too immaculate. And besides, what sort of man do you find in a bookshop at ten o'clock on a Monday morning, unless he is some sort of don, about his own affairs? This man, however, was too presentable to be one of the academics we get in from time to time. He turned briefly when I said 'Good morning' before turning back to the shelves. I had an impression of a fine blond head and a fair-skinned face prematurely worn into furrows of anxiety which gave him an elderly look, although his figure was tall and upright and rather graceful.

In his hasty return to his earlier perusal of the shelves I sensed a reserve. This man would not waste time on a strange woman, with whom in any case he was not on terms of familiarity or friendship. I found him attractive, more attractive than the prospect of a day with St John Collier, who had begun to acquire a patina of benign tediousness. I pitied those two girls having to listen to him throughout their childhood, although the experience seemed to have done them no harm. Their respect for their father had remained intact, a fact at which I could only marvel. My own father had never emitted a single philosophical or semi-philosophical dictum, so that I had learned at an early age not to look to him for enlightenment, or even very much in the way of affection. He found me as tiresome as I found him, but I had never quite resolved the factors that made us so antagonistic.

I took the cover off my typewriter and pretended to be studying my papers. It would be impolite to start work with this man at my back, although he was paying me no attention. From what I could judge he was reading his way steadily through whatever came to hand, as if he had found sanctuary in our basement and was in no hurry to leave. I also detected an almost unnatural stillness, almost a watchfulness about him, as if he were sensitive to my own inactivity, or as if he knew that I was not normally an inactive person whom he had no wish to constrain by his presence. For this reason he was conscious of me, as I was of him. I shuffled the typewritten pages on my desk; clearly I could not start on the women's magazines while he appeared to be reading Heine's collected poems.  I corrected a few typing errors, resolving to work properly, innocent as well.

I am alert now to signs of damage in a man. If this is combined with physical excellence I feel a perverse desire to take him over, as if his weakness excited me. When the two conditions are combined-attractiveness and hesitation-our conjunction is often spectacular. I sometimes think that my childish ruthlessness has survived undiminished, but in fact I am careful to cause no harm. Indeed I disappear discreetly, leaving several questions unanswered. I wish that this particular pattern did not impose itself, that I could happily offer affection without that slight feeling of vengeful satisfaction. On the whole I have managed quite well. It is just that my mother's death, and the sight of those photograph albums, which kept company by her bed together with Palgrave's Golden Treasury, had weakened me. And perhaps I was undergoing the influence of St John Collier's sweet-natured assertions, as if to believe in a happier world were within the capacity of even fallen creatures like myself. For I knew myself to be at fault. The intolerance I had manifested towards my father had left a stain, which was why I was such a solitary person. A solitary person with a longing for wholeness, an experience which would cancel all the others. A baptism, if you like.

The man in the basement, of whose presence I had become uncomfortably aware, as he had of mine, smelled discreetly of some subtle scent which was far removed from the blasts of aftershave one was likely to encounter in the early morning. He gave an impression of almost futile luxury, which was implemented when he drew a snowy handkerchief from his pocket and flicked a small speck of dust from his fingers. He implied an army of servants, either that or a lonely and obsessive drive towards perfection, probably the latter. He was probably rich, certainly idle. I imagined his empty day, every gesture aiming at sublimity. He had an iconic presence, and yet I was able to observe the occasional involuntary grimace which creased his fair thin-skinned face. He was a man torn between achievement and frustration, the balance tilted towards the latter. When I sneezed he gave a violent start, as if recalled to familiarity with greater upheavals.

I offered to make him a cup of coffee but he refused effusively. I was beginning to find his continued presence rather tiresome. At the same time he impressed me as attractive. I wanted to know his story, which I was quite capable of inventing for myself. Perhaps because I had been thinking of my father I thought I detected an unhappy home background, an invalid sister to whom he was deeply attached. This selfless sister-for she would be all virtue, as in one of St John Collier's scenarios-would urge him to go out and enjoy himself. But the poor fellow would be half-hearted in this pursuit, would seek refuge, indeed basements, where his presence would impress but would remain unchallenged. This same sister would oversee his appearance, which would always be faultless, this being a subject on which they would naturally concur. I had no way of knowing how accurate or inaccurate this picture was, but I did not doubt that I was intrigued. I looked at my watch and realized that he had been silently reading for thirty-five minutes. By this time he could have had one or two of Heine's poems off by heart. Either that or he was translating them. Perhaps he too was a man of letters. But he looked too ineffable, and also too unhappy, for that. I altered my estimate of him. He was a dilettante, a caste I had always admired.


'Can I help you?' I said finally, slightly irritated by the lack of effect my presence was having on him. Besides, I wanted to get on with my work. I was aware that before my enforced absence I had come across an article boldly entitled 'Emphasize your good points!' (nowadays it would be called 'Maximize your assets!', in deference to the market economy) which suggested that St John Collier's favoured publications were emerging from their post-war obedience, and were exchanging austerity for a certain tentative assertiveness. This in turn, but the thought must have been lying dormant, alerted me to the unpleasant fact that St John Collier was running out of time and myself with him. The pile of magazines had shrunk dramatically: my task was almost completed. I had no doubt that Muriel would keep me on for a bit, but she did not really need a full-time assistant. My task had been to devote my attention to St John Collier, and this I had done; editorial work simply amounted to putting the articles in chronological order. Changes of an unwelcome kind seemed to be inevitable. I resolved to ask Muriel whether it might be interesting to write some sort of Foreword, an account of St John's early life, perhaps. She could tell me the facts and I could string them out into some sort of narrative. The idea appealed to me. I had got used to him; he was safe in my hands. Besides, his philosophy was so user-friendly, the best of the best of all possible worlds, as someone or other had said. Trust and hope would never let you down, he seemed to imply. I should have liked to believe that he was right.

'Are you looking for anything in particular? 'I asked, rather more sharply than I intended.

'Jenny Treibel,' he replied. 'You don't seem to have a copy.'

'We have Effi Briest,' I said. 'Are you particularly interested in Fontane?'

'Oh, I have several copies of Effi Briest,' he replied. 'It was some of the other stories I was after. They are rather hard to come by, you know. You are my last hope.' He gave a heartbreaking smile. 'I have tried almost everywhere I can think of.'

'The London Library?'

'Oh, but you see I must have my own copy!

He looked worried, distressed, more distressed than one should look in the face of a slight contretemps.

'Most people come in for the French,' I remarked chattily, anxious for some reason to put him at his ease.

'I prefer the German writers,' he said, with the same heartbreaking smile, as of one confessing to a weakness. A man who was not quite a man, I reflected. The idea had a perverse appeal.

In my mind's eye I had an image of a book with a red and white cover brought in, with a job-lot of texts, by a university student after graduating. (We get plenty of these.) This book was entitled The German Library and was in good condition. Muriel had put it on one side, on one of the tables, with the intention of reading it herself. As far as I knew it was still there. The name Fontane, which was certainly there, came to me distantly but with a sense of certainty. I have an excellent photographic memory. I remembered something like 'Shorter Fiction', also on the cover.

'I think I can find you a copy,' I said. 'But not straight away. If you'd like to give me your name and address I'll let you know.'

He looked even more worried, as if this were classified information, but divulged an address in Weymouth Street. I knew it well, of course, for it was on the route of my evening walks. I promised to be in touch and accompanied him back up the stairs. By now he seemed anxious to leave. With a pleasant expression, or so I hoped, I watched as he wrestled with the door.

'Give it a good tug,' said Muriel, raising her eyes from her book. 'It needs seeing to, but we haven't the right instruments.

'We need a man.'

At this he looked alarmed, as if she had expected him to take off his coat and get down to it straight away. (She probably had.) We both watched as he extricated himself. Then Muriel went back to her book, and I lingered for a few minutes in the shop. I found the red and white volume under a pile of others on the table, waiting to be shelved. I took it downstairs with me, as if I were going to put it away.

At six o'clock that evening I telephoned the number he had given me. 'Mr Gibson?' I inquired. 'It's Claire Pitt, from the bookshop. I've found a copy of Jenny Treibel for you, but it's in English. Would you like me to keep it for you?'

'Could you perhaps send it?' he said.

'Oh, I'll drop it in,' I assured him. I was anxious to verify my theory about the invalid sister. 'I'm often in the area.' This at least was true.

'Claire!' came Muriel's voice. 'I'm locking up!'

He was quite likely to have forgotten my name already. 'Claire Pitt" I repeated, then suddenly wondered what on earth I was doing. His voice had sounded thin and melodious, as if he were on his best behaviour, anxious to reassure. Definitely the invalid sister, I thought.

I picked up the book, said goodnight to Muriel, and went home. In the course of the evening I glanced through it, beguiled by some of the names ('Victoire', 'Lisette'). I would ask him to lend it to me, I decided. Just for a few days. That way I could deliver it to him all over again.

I have no interest in the German Romantics, or indeed in any other kind of romantic, with or without a literary status, but the stories seemed limpid, accessible, but at the same time remote in time, rather like the man who had been looking for them. I did not go so far as to read Jenny Treibel so as to seem more knowledgeable than I really was; such stratagems were not in my nature. I really do not know what I had in mind at that stage. Sometimes an attractive appearance is enough, so that one is inclined to endow the person who possesses such an appearance with other gifts, grace, intelligence, some sort of accomplishment. And this tall fair stranger had seemed so incongruous in our dusty basement, as if he were visiting from another world where everyone was well dressed. The wincing nervousness seemed out of character but it was easy for me to excuse it. It was the reason for this that I was determined to examine. The man had either suffered some sort of psychic injury that had left him otherwise intact or he was under great strain. There may have been, probably was, illness somewhere in the background, and with this I could sympathize all too readily, as my experience had taught me to. I had frequently felt shame at my own resistance to my father's tragedy, but I believe my instinct was correct. It is sometimes necessary to keep one's distance from misfortune, however harsh this may seem to others.

The man in the shop seemed more affected by this dilemma (if it existed) than I had ever been; he was far gone, if not in suffering, then no doubt in awareness. I should have liked to discuss this matter with someone, or even to have put the man on his guard. Your sympathy is quite adequate, I should have said; do not allow it to become excessive. Vulnerability is commendable; masochism is not. There was no possibility of my ever saying this. But I believe that my desire to say it was present even on that first day. I felt both pity and impatience, as if enormous efforts would be needed to impose the realities of life once more before it proved too late. In this I may have been prescient. Spotless heroes (I did not doubt that he would be spotless) often owe their survival to agencies more worldly than themselves. It was something to think about, something to remind me of the fairy stories I had read so obsessively as a child. I put it no higher than that.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This novel tells the story of Claire Pitt, a young woman who has lived most of her life under the watchful eyes of her parents. After her mother's death, Claire reexamines her day-to-day routine and her future in her London flat. She passes the time working in a bookstore, where she meets a mysterious and attractive young man whose wife is ill, and they begin a relationship that dramatically alters Claire's vision of herself, her past, and her future.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Brookner once again takes on the themes of loneliness, the scars we bear from the emotional wounds of our past, and the ways that people do (and do not) connect as she tells the story of Claire Pitt, an unmarried woman in London. Claire, whose mother just died, takes a job in a bookstore owned by two elderly sisters. Working in the basement (the foreign language section, which hardly ever has any customers), her task is typing up the articles and journal entries of the sisters' long dead father, readying them for possible future publication. When older, attractive, and somewhat mysterious Martin Gibson comes to the basement one day looking for a book, Claire is drawn to him. They become involved despite Claire's knowledge throughout that Martin feels no real connection to her, and what begins for Claire as another of her brief and superficial affairs moves into the territory of obsession. Brookner's characters are somewhat chilly and distant, and although the reader feels empathy for Claire's situation, it is also hard to understand her self-delusion. Diana Quick's narration is superb; she fully conveys the despair and pain Claire experiences and enhances the emotional nuances in the story. Her first-person reading of Claire's thoughts and conversations are always compelling. Despite Quick's talents, this remains ultimately a distant novel best appreciated by loyal Brookner fans.--Melody A. Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, NC Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Charles McNulty - The Village Voice

Undue Influence is filled with the aesthetic brightness of Brookner at her self-ironic best.

Michael Dorris - (Michael Dorris Los Angeles Times Book Review

Brookner is a writer of great skill and precision. Passages of brilliant writing abound, hard—won insights that startle us with Brookner's clarity and succinct intelligence.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING