Leaving Home

Emma Roberts, the narrator of Leaving Home, and Frances Hinton, start from the same circumstances, a cloistral relationship with a dependant widowed mother, and consequent desire to batten onto a stronger personality in order to begin to experience life: "It was therefore somehow appropriate [. . .] that I should attach myself to a surrogate whom I saw as capable as acting as a mentor." (Leaving Home, p. 6). In Emma's case the surrogate is Francoise, a breezy, willful and outspoken Frenchwoman whose overly close relationship to her domineering mother parallels Emma's own. Frances is drawn to the equally charismatic Nick and Alix. Initially, the passive, dependant Emma threatens to retrace Frances' footsteps. When the character of Michael was introduced, I smugly assumed I knew right where the plot was headed. I happily admit I was wrong.

In the twenty years separating the two novels, the narrator's worldview has taken an upturn. While the retiring Frances cannot confront or influence the unequal relationships in her life and capitualtes to stronger wills than hers, Emma mangages to take comparatively forthright and decisive action with her friends and lovers. It is Frances' tragedy that she does not realize, as Emma does, "It was even possible that others might not have my best interests at heart, might prove as intent on their own destiny as I had thought to be on mine." (Leaving Home, p. 116)

Leaving Home is also one of the few novels by Dr. Brookner I can recall where the protagonist shows a religious sensibility. Emma's refreshment in Saint-Sulpice stands in contrast with the horrifying visit to Saint Denis by Kitty Maule in Providence.

(I just noticed that many of Dr. Brookner's heroines (Kitty, Julia, Fanny, Emma) share first names with those of Jane Austen!)

This is a beautifully written novel, full of substance. It rewards careful reading.


Leaving Home   July 14, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Emma, a submissive and uncertain "good daughter" living with her frail mother in their London flat is contrasted against a dominant and impulsive French friend, Francoise, also with mother difficulties. By the end, it is Francoise who is resigned to submit to her mother's wishes and Emma who begins to take control of her life when the alternatives seem too much to bear. The catalyst in both cases is loss and the necessities that it creates. Left to our own initiative, such changes are rarely accomplished. Brookner's territory in this novel is the intimate dance between order and passion as it manifests in history, garden design, the relations between people, and in the internal, even subliminal, struggles between mind and heart. It is our demand for a guiding principle to interpret and wrestle with the uncertainties of life that seems to give rise in each of us either to a striving for order as a symbol of safety or for the following of our passions as a symbol of freedom. In the end, we each could do with more of what we are not. This is some of Brookner's most succinct, yet fully satisfying writing to date.


Leaving Home   May 24, 2005
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

This book will be enjoyable to Brookner fans as it contains many of her trademark features, long walks, empty Sundays, coffee, a healthy income(although not at the beginning of the book, it does come later)visits to Selfridges Food Hall and a French connection. Most of all it has long paragraphs of prose which engulf the reader into Brookner-land where many of us would like to live permanently. The story starts out carefully, introducing Emma and her plans to escape to France to persue her studies on a very tight budget. She leaves behind her sparse family, and lives as something of an outsider, befriending an outgoing French girl into whose family she becomes embroiled.As the book progresses, Emma gradually grows into independence and accepts herself and her situation.

Anita Brookner is a novelist who takes a small canvas and paints her story with precision. This book is unlikely to be of interest to those who like fast moving or adventurous plots, but will please readers who like to find out all the details of the characters and to savour rich and well constructed prose.