The level of precision is remarkable, particularly in relation to detail and character.Īs the novel opens, Edith Hope – an unmarried writer of romantic fiction – has just been packed off by her respectable, interfering friends to the Hotel du Lac, a rather austere, traditional hotel of high repute in the Swiss countryside. Revisiting it now, I see it as a very different book – much more interesting and closely observed than it seemed on my first reading. At thirty-nine, Edith Hope (the central character) seemed middle-aged, old before her time – something I found difficult to connect with in the foolishness of my youth. I was in my early twenties at the time – clearly much too young and lacking in life experience to fully appreciate the book’s many nuances and subtleties. My first experience of this novel was back in the mid-‘80s, shortly after it had won the Booker Prize.
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