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Latecomers
A novel about the 50-year friendship of two dissimilar German refugees brought over to England as children from Nazi Germany. Their friendship becomes a funny yet touching model for the ways in which human beings come to terms with the tragedy of living.
Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
Audible Audio
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Anita Brookner
60 books658 followersAnita Brookner published her first novel, A Start In Life in 1981. Her most notable novel, her fourth, Hotel du Lac won the Man Booker Prize in 1984. Her novel, The Next Big Thing was longlisted (alongside John Banville's, Shroud) in 2002 for the Man Booker Prize. She published more than 25 works of fiction, notably: Strangers (2009) shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Fraud (1992) and, The Rules of Engagement (2003). She was also the first female to hold a Slade Professorship of Fine Arts at Cambridge University.
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December 29, 2024
"No man is free of his own history."
—Anita Brookner, Latecomers.
Two Jewish boys, Thomas Hartmann and Thomas Fibich, strangers to each other, but both refugees from Nazi Germany, are billeted in an English school where they form an unbreakable bond. The book is essentially an insightful portrayal of their friendship, lives, marriages and unswerving loyalty to each other, forged in the horror of their shared experiences.
Into middle age, Hartmann (he of the beautifully-cut hair, expensive suit and manicured nails), is depicted as a hedonist, his raison d'être being the pursuit of life's simple pleasures. Fibich, on the other hand, is rather more uncertain and abstains from self-indulgence due to the survivor guilt that gnaws away at his being. Other than the common denominator of their troubled background, the two men have nothing in common, yet their being together brings them an unexpressed comfort.
Brookner was an author in total control of her craft and most modern-day writers couldn't hope to rival the elegant clarity of her prose. Fact.
But here's the thing…
Although it would be remiss of me to award this insightful novel anything less than five stars, I also wouldn't break into a gallop to recommend it. I view Anita Brookner's work as I do Alan Hollinghurst's; their storytelling doesn't hold a candle to their peerless writing. In truth, the main characters lead unremarkable lives and nothing exciting or beguiling happens in the entire book! : (
Brookner was a self-possessed, perceptive writer and this introspective story conclusively showcases her subtle wit and keen powers of observation. Her sophisticated prose, as said, is indisputably a thing of beauty to be admired and appreciated. But those who prefer their books to take them on an uncertain-yet-absorbing journey might wish to give it a swerve.
—Anita Brookner, Latecomers.
Two Jewish boys, Thomas Hartmann and Thomas Fibich, strangers to each other, but both refugees from Nazi Germany, are billeted in an English school where they form an unbreakable bond. The book is essentially an insightful portrayal of their friendship, lives, marriages and unswerving loyalty to each other, forged in the horror of their shared experiences.
Into middle age, Hartmann (he of the beautifully-cut hair, expensive suit and manicured nails), is depicted as a hedonist, his raison d'être being the pursuit of life's simple pleasures. Fibich, on the other hand, is rather more uncertain and abstains from self-indulgence due to the survivor guilt that gnaws away at his being. Other than the common denominator of their troubled background, the two men have nothing in common, yet their being together brings them an unexpressed comfort.
Brookner was an author in total control of her craft and most modern-day writers couldn't hope to rival the elegant clarity of her prose. Fact.
But here's the thing…
Although it would be remiss of me to award this insightful novel anything less than five stars, I also wouldn't break into a gallop to recommend it. I view Anita Brookner's work as I do Alan Hollinghurst's; their storytelling doesn't hold a candle to their peerless writing. In truth, the main characters lead unremarkable lives and nothing exciting or beguiling happens in the entire book! : (
Brookner was a self-possessed, perceptive writer and this introspective story conclusively showcases her subtle wit and keen powers of observation. Her sophisticated prose, as said, is indisputably a thing of beauty to be admired and appreciated. But those who prefer their books to take them on an uncertain-yet-absorbing journey might wish to give it a swerve.
April 8, 2024
Hartmann and Fibich come to England as children before the Second World War on the historic kindertransport. They are in every sense of the phrase: displaced persons, and remain so all their lives. They meet and bond with each other in a wretched boarding school. In London they spend their childhood and adolescent years with Hartmann's Aunt Marie, before moving on to lives as successful businessmen, though their business is a frivolous one, low-brow greeting cards at one point, that neither takes seriously. The overarching theme for Hartmann is one of sensuous burial in the present as a means of avoiding unpleasant memories. Yvette, his wife, is deliberately out of step with the liberated women of her generation. She has a severe deficit in the empathy department; and her shallowness is admirably reflected in her materialism, which makes her a perfect fit for Hartmann. Everything with Yvette is appearance, surface, display. Everything with Hartmann is pleasure, indulgence, release. Fibich by contrast is someone who has not left his past behind. He is haunted by the Shoah, particularly the loss of his parents. He suffers keenly all his life from what psychologists call "survivor guilt." He wishes to understand it, but it's too much cognitive dissonance that will never lend itself to neat answers. (One is reminded of the guard in Auschwitz who says to Primo Levi: "There is no why here.") The woman Fibich marries, Christine, is Aunt Marie's niece and a more self-effacing and humble character you are unlikely to come across this side of Dickens; though she is without the unbearable tics Dickens gives his characters, or the cloying cheerfulness. Fibich meets Christine when she arrives every Friday to help Aunt Marie prepare her only dish: braised tongue à l'orientale. She stays with Fibich during the aunt's precipitous decline and death, and by then they are bound to each other by mutual pain and loss. Life for Brookner's characters, some of them, is a constant risk and worry. Whatever they do they is marked by a certain paralysis by analysis, stuck to the point of inanition. Though they try they can never remedy their affliction. Such are Fibich and Christine, such is also Hartmann, though Yvette is all instinct, and intuitive grasping. As for the writing, the novel all but leaps to life in your hands. Brookner is such an efficient writer; by p. 84 she has gone through the upbringing, childhood and adult psychological life of all four main characters. The section in which Christine and Fibich have a son of their own, Toto, whose sheer life force all but bowls them over, is dazzling. Toto's familiar is Yvette, with whom he shares an adoration for surfaces. He wants to be an actor, and one has to admit that seems perfect for this debauched Narcissus. This is one of my favorite Brookner novels and I highly recommend it.
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May 25, 2021Strange strange.
Strange, strange, strange.
Before starting to read this book. I picked it up a few times, flicked through it and read a few pages. This is very strange, I thought, this book reads as if it is the synopsis of a book rather than being the book itself. Strange, strange.
Well, I looked on Goodreads and Latecomers seemed to have rather a lot of positive reviews, so I thought to myself I'd read it and see how it went. But indeed it remained strange throughout with an omniscient narration and a distant tone which reminded me of reading Tolkien when I was young, specifically Smith of Wootten Major and Tree and Leaf.
Still at a certain point I felt that Brookner forced a large old iron key under my sternum and twisted it round.
In a further twist I found this book to be more carefully analytical about paintings than her book Romantiscism and it's discontents - a cunning editor would have asked her to write a novel with that title instead of non fiction. That could have been a fine book. In the middle of this book , one character thinks of himself as playing at being married with his wife while another character thinks of his friend of playing at life as though it was a game. Psychologically I can see this as disassociation - the main characters arrived in Britain on the Kindertransports , they are refugees and they deal with their trauma and loss in contrasting ways. While in terms of reading the novel the notion of play acting or role playing adds to the feeling of reading a series of still lives, or a set of Hogarth prints, there's a sense of conscious role playing which the flat narrative tone enhances, maybe all of Brookner's novels are like that. Maybe it is worth saying that this tell don't show book is an examination of the shallows of four characters, the two refugees, their wives (whoops! sorry spoiler there), . Brookner explicitly tells us that one of the wives has shallows rather than depths of personality, but I felt it was true of all of them and a part of the powerful two-dimensional effect of the novel. Still lives could have been an effective title for this book too.
Culturally since we speak of the depths of the personality, saying shallows seems pejorative - and Brookner I think means shallows to be pejorative when she so describes a character, but it seems broadly true of all her characters here, they luxuriate in a single aspect of their natures and maybe we all do and need to learn to see ourselves as flat as we truly are.
Like A.S Byatt's The Children's Book, there are superfluous characters, I don't think we gain by learning that the window cleaner is a widower and went to evening classes to learn to cook, and that he finds it exotic to grate lemon into his rice, but it does add to my sense that much of this novel is disposable, like a set of Hogarth prints, you can get rid of all but one of them and still you are left with something that does tell a story. In the same way reading any five or seven page chunk of this novel is to read the whole of it, except you might miss out on the experience of the ghost of Anita Brookner turning a key under your sternum.
At the front of the book it is written that Anita Brookner was born in London into a Polish immigrant family, I guess this is a personal novel, and that her experience of belonging, not belonging, disruption and disconnection within the family and from the extended family flows into her two principal characters.
Strange, strange, strange.
Before starting to read this book. I picked it up a few times, flicked through it and read a few pages. This is very strange, I thought, this book reads as if it is the synopsis of a book rather than being the book itself. Strange, strange.
Well, I looked on Goodreads and Latecomers seemed to have rather a lot of positive reviews, so I thought to myself I'd read it and see how it went. But indeed it remained strange throughout with an omniscient narration and a distant tone which reminded me of reading Tolkien when I was young, specifically Smith of Wootten Major and Tree and Leaf.
Still at a certain point I felt that Brookner forced a large old iron key under my sternum and twisted it round.
In a further twist I found this book to be more carefully analytical about paintings than her book Romantiscism and it's discontents - a cunning editor would have asked her to write a novel with that title instead of non fiction. That could have been a fine book. In the middle of this book , one character thinks of himself as playing at being married with his wife while another character thinks of his friend of playing at life as though it was a game. Psychologically I can see this as disassociation - the main characters arrived in Britain on the Kindertransports , they are refugees and they deal with their trauma and loss in contrasting ways. While in terms of reading the novel the notion of play acting or role playing adds to the feeling of reading a series of still lives, or a set of Hogarth prints, there's a sense of conscious role playing which the flat narrative tone enhances, maybe all of Brookner's novels are like that. Maybe it is worth saying that this tell don't show book is an examination of the shallows of four characters, the two refugees, their wives (whoops! sorry spoiler there), . Brookner explicitly tells us that one of the wives has shallows rather than depths of personality, but I felt it was true of all of them and a part of the powerful two-dimensional effect of the novel. Still lives could have been an effective title for this book too.
Culturally since we speak of the depths of the personality, saying shallows seems pejorative - and Brookner I think means shallows to be pejorative when she so describes a character, but it seems broadly true of all her characters here, they luxuriate in a single aspect of their natures and maybe we all do and need to learn to see ourselves as flat as we truly are.
Like A.S Byatt's The Children's Book, there are superfluous characters, I don't think we gain by learning that the window cleaner is a widower and went to evening classes to learn to cook, and that he finds it exotic to grate lemon into his rice, but it does add to my sense that much of this novel is disposable, like a set of Hogarth prints, you can get rid of all but one of them and still you are left with something that does tell a story. In the same way reading any five or seven page chunk of this novel is to read the whole of it, except you might miss out on the experience of the ghost of Anita Brookner turning a key under your sternum.
At the front of the book it is written that Anita Brookner was born in London into a Polish immigrant family, I guess this is a personal novel, and that her experience of belonging, not belonging, disruption and disconnection within the family and from the extended family flows into her two principal characters.
Read
April 28, 2023A vida tem um talento especial para nos presentear com coincidências (se são propositadas não são coincidências, mas enfim) que, não raras vezes, me fazem sorrir. Sobretudo - e para quem lê regularmente - estas agrupam-se muitas vezes em redor de temas abordados nas obras literárias e é-me muito frequente acabar por ler dois e três livros seguidos com uma mesma temática ou tratamento de tema, ou voz etc. Isso mesmo acabou por acontecer depois de terminar O Jardim dos Finzi-Contini e pegar neste O Tempo Esquecido que estava em stand by.
De certa forma as histórias que nos trazem, um e outro, entrecruzam-se em determinado ponto e esse cruzamento acaba por ser o descodificador de ambas as obras: o tempo - passado, presente e futuro.
(...)nenhum homem está livre da sua própria história.
Partindo de um passado traumático, Fibich e Hartmann, outrora duas crianças refugiadas por força da guerra, e as suas esposas, respetivamente, Yvette e Cristina, representam, enquanto casais, dois pólos opostos dum mesmo espectro. O primeiro forçosamente pessimista e introvertido, o segundo otimista e extrovertido. Unidos por um passado traumático comum, desdobram-se de forma antagónicas enquanto procuram ora recuperar ora esquecer as memórias que lhes ditam quem são.
As sombras dos primeiros tempos das suas vidas amontoavam-se em torno deles como nuvens pesadas.
Com um tratamento altamente intelectual - demasiado para mim a quem acabou por aborrecer um pouco, a determinada altura, a narrativa seca e cirúrgica -, Anita Brookner aborda, através da reconstituição da memória, as lutas internas dos dois casais enquanto percorrem o caminho da reconciliação com o passado e [re]conquistam o amor ao presente:
- Nunca olhas para trás? - perguntou Fibich. -Não, se o puder evitar
(...)
- Qual é o teu segredo? - perguntou.
- O presente é o meu segredo. Viver no presente.
Através da conceção de um tempo cíclico e pacífico, a autora permite-lhes encontrar o perdão...
Toda a gente é portadora de todos os seus sucessivos eus, intactos, à espera de serem reactivados em momentos de dor, de medo, de perigo. Tudo é recuperável, todos os choques, todos os sofrimentos. Mas talvez se torne num dever abandonar a reserva de tempo que uma pessoa carrega consigo, descartá-la a favor do presente, de modo que o seu amplexo se possa voltar na direcção do mundo exterior.
...e, da mesma forma, força a recusa da auto-agressão como um pacto que todos devemos seguir para connosco próprios:
Nem tudo é susceptivel de ficar resolvido nesta vida.
Não imagino o que possa representar a escrita de um romance deste calibre, mesmo porque o aproximo mais de uma tese do que de uma ficção, mas o seu alcance impressionou-me muitíssimo. Não encontro razão nenhuma para tantas vezes negarmos o talento destas autoras que ocupam uma espécie de nicho onde o entusiasmo parte quase sempre de académicos e pouco da comunidade leitora mais abrangente. Este O Tempo Esquecido é um belo exemplo desse ostracismo forçado e imerecido, e uma história poderosa sobre o poder da memória e a capacidade que esta tem para fazer e desfazer as nossas auto-ficções.
De certa forma as histórias que nos trazem, um e outro, entrecruzam-se em determinado ponto e esse cruzamento acaba por ser o descodificador de ambas as obras: o tempo - passado, presente e futuro.
(...)nenhum homem está livre da sua própria história.
Partindo de um passado traumático, Fibich e Hartmann, outrora duas crianças refugiadas por força da guerra, e as suas esposas, respetivamente, Yvette e Cristina, representam, enquanto casais, dois pólos opostos dum mesmo espectro. O primeiro forçosamente pessimista e introvertido, o segundo otimista e extrovertido. Unidos por um passado traumático comum, desdobram-se de forma antagónicas enquanto procuram ora recuperar ora esquecer as memórias que lhes ditam quem são.
As sombras dos primeiros tempos das suas vidas amontoavam-se em torno deles como nuvens pesadas.
Com um tratamento altamente intelectual - demasiado para mim a quem acabou por aborrecer um pouco, a determinada altura, a narrativa seca e cirúrgica -, Anita Brookner aborda, através da reconstituição da memória, as lutas internas dos dois casais enquanto percorrem o caminho da reconciliação com o passado e [re]conquistam o amor ao presente:
- Nunca olhas para trás? - perguntou Fibich. -Não, se o puder evitar
(...)
- Qual é o teu segredo? - perguntou.
- O presente é o meu segredo. Viver no presente.
Através da conceção de um tempo cíclico e pacífico, a autora permite-lhes encontrar o perdão...
Toda a gente é portadora de todos os seus sucessivos eus, intactos, à espera de serem reactivados em momentos de dor, de medo, de perigo. Tudo é recuperável, todos os choques, todos os sofrimentos. Mas talvez se torne num dever abandonar a reserva de tempo que uma pessoa carrega consigo, descartá-la a favor do presente, de modo que o seu amplexo se possa voltar na direcção do mundo exterior.
...e, da mesma forma, força a recusa da auto-agressão como um pacto que todos devemos seguir para connosco próprios:
Nem tudo é susceptivel de ficar resolvido nesta vida.
Não imagino o que possa representar a escrita de um romance deste calibre, mesmo porque o aproximo mais de uma tese do que de uma ficção, mas o seu alcance impressionou-me muitíssimo. Não encontro razão nenhuma para tantas vezes negarmos o talento destas autoras que ocupam uma espécie de nicho onde o entusiasmo parte quase sempre de académicos e pouco da comunidade leitora mais abrangente. Este O Tempo Esquecido é um belo exemplo desse ostracismo forçado e imerecido, e uma história poderosa sobre o poder da memória e a capacidade que esta tem para fazer e desfazer as nossas auto-ficções.
November 12, 2012
This really is a compassionate beautiful book which will touch your heart. It's central themes are of how to live with a troubled past, friendship, marriage, parenthood and accepting the aging process. The potential for it to present these in a sickly manner is immense and yet is totally avoided here. The faults and qualities of each character are explored in a manner which makes each of them seem totally real. For a novel of only moderate length emotions and events are covered with a delicate and considered touch while being fully explored. I'm glad to have discovered this one.
April 8, 2019
Latecomers, Anita Brookner’s eighth novel, focuses on two men, their two wives, their two children, and the relationships among them. The men, friends and mutual protectors since childhood, share a first name, a background as boyhood émigrés from bourgeois and assimilated Jewish families in Germany, as orphans, as latecomers to England and to life, and as co-owners of a successful greeting card firm that specialized in ”Get Well cards. . . particularly lugubrious or insensitively cheerful greetings for the post-operative patient.” They live in the same building, their families are intertwined. ”And so they had been together since childhood and could no more think of living apart than they could of divorcing their wives, although their temperaments were diametrically opposed and they rarely thought alike on any matter. It was even natural to them to live separated by no more than a single storey”.
As I’ve come to expect from Brookner, her character portraits are wonderful. Brookner sharply contrasts the two men. Thomas Hartmann, the older of the two, wills himself to happiness and satisfaction, delights in good food, his wife and his mistress, and his commercial success: ”Hartmann, a voluptuary, lowered a spoonful of brown sugar crystals into his coffee cup, then placed a square of bitter chocolate on his tongue, and, while it was dissolving, lit his first cigarette. The ensuing mélange of tastes and aromas pleased him profoundly, as did the blue tracery of smoke above the white linen tablecloth, the spray of yellow carnations in the silver vase, and his manicured. . .” Hartmann grows portly, yet still prides himself on his own and his wife’s appearances: ”Hartmann’s joy was apparent in his beautifully cut hair, his expensive suit, his manicured hands, the faint aura of cologne that heralded his approach”. Thomas Fibich, the younger man, remains haunted by losing his parents to the Holocaust, by losing his childhood home, and by the uncertainties of his life. Fibich is tall, thin, and strikingly handsome, although he remains unaware of his appearance and its effect on others: ”He grew immensely tall and very handsome, a condition of which he was unaware. He remained miserable and ashamed”. The two men support and love each other, and come together even further over their affection for their children.
Brookner especially shines in Latecomers in her portrayal of the two men’s relationships with and concerns about their adult children. Hartmann’s daughter marries later than he and his wife had hoped, to an acceptable but uninspiring colleague. Hartmann finds himself disappointed by his daughter’s ordinariness, her lack of vanity, as an adult. Fibich finds himself confused, even stunned, by his son’s magnetic good looks, by his appeal to women, by his apparent self-confidence and -regard: ”Toto Fibich was so astonishingly handsome that his parents often wished for a more ordinary-looking son, one who would talk to them more easily, be less in demand, be more familiar, more humble, less of a star.”
Anita Brookner may be best known for her finely drawn portraits of lonely, single women. But in Latecomers she proves that she’s equally adept at finely drawn portraits of men, friendships, marriages, and parents’ relationships with their children. Anita Brookner was a superb novelist: the depth and variety of her novels and her characters continue to amaze me.
As I’ve come to expect from Brookner, her character portraits are wonderful. Brookner sharply contrasts the two men. Thomas Hartmann, the older of the two, wills himself to happiness and satisfaction, delights in good food, his wife and his mistress, and his commercial success: ”Hartmann, a voluptuary, lowered a spoonful of brown sugar crystals into his coffee cup, then placed a square of bitter chocolate on his tongue, and, while it was dissolving, lit his first cigarette. The ensuing mélange of tastes and aromas pleased him profoundly, as did the blue tracery of smoke above the white linen tablecloth, the spray of yellow carnations in the silver vase, and his manicured. . .” Hartmann grows portly, yet still prides himself on his own and his wife’s appearances: ”Hartmann’s joy was apparent in his beautifully cut hair, his expensive suit, his manicured hands, the faint aura of cologne that heralded his approach”. Thomas Fibich, the younger man, remains haunted by losing his parents to the Holocaust, by losing his childhood home, and by the uncertainties of his life. Fibich is tall, thin, and strikingly handsome, although he remains unaware of his appearance and its effect on others: ”He grew immensely tall and very handsome, a condition of which he was unaware. He remained miserable and ashamed”. The two men support and love each other, and come together even further over their affection for their children.
Brookner especially shines in Latecomers in her portrayal of the two men’s relationships with and concerns about their adult children. Hartmann’s daughter marries later than he and his wife had hoped, to an acceptable but uninspiring colleague. Hartmann finds himself disappointed by his daughter’s ordinariness, her lack of vanity, as an adult. Fibich finds himself confused, even stunned, by his son’s magnetic good looks, by his appeal to women, by his apparent self-confidence and -regard: ”Toto Fibich was so astonishingly handsome that his parents often wished for a more ordinary-looking son, one who would talk to them more easily, be less in demand, be more familiar, more humble, less of a star.”
Anita Brookner may be best known for her finely drawn portraits of lonely, single women. But in Latecomers she proves that she’s equally adept at finely drawn portraits of men, friendships, marriages, and parents’ relationships with their children. Anita Brookner was a superb novelist: the depth and variety of her novels and her characters continue to amaze me.
May 14, 2020
Story of friends and business partners who first met at school in England as refugees from Germany, though like many of her books, if she didn't say when it was set, you probably wouldn't guess.
Fibich and Hartman are very different in personality and how they cope with loss and trauma from their childhoods, and indeed the troubles that come afterwards in their outwardly successful lives, but they have an intense friendship that lasts throughout their lives, so that each is closer to some members of the other's family than their own.
Most chapters focus on one character, but it manages not to be disjointed; instead you feel more empathy with and thus understanding of the character.
Fibich and Hartman are very different in personality and how they cope with loss and trauma from their childhoods, and indeed the troubles that come afterwards in their outwardly successful lives, but they have an intense friendship that lasts throughout their lives, so that each is closer to some members of the other's family than their own.
Most chapters focus on one character, but it manages not to be disjointed; instead you feel more empathy with and thus understanding of the character.
February 13, 2023
4.5 stars. A very well written, smooth, elegant, moving novel about the lives of two men, Hartmann and Fibich. Both as boys were sent from Germany during World War Two to live at an English boarding school. They formed a strong friendship that they continued in their adult lives. Both marry. Their Jewish parents died during the war. Hartmann is optimistic, content, and at ease with his life. He lives for the present. Fibich is anxious, sad, self effacing, detached and isolated man.
Each individual characterization has depth, with attention to detail. Their mannerism, values and idiosyncrasies are well described. For example, Hartmann’s wife Yvette, is a glamorous, well groomed woman who shares Hartmann’s passion for life. Brookner describes her:
“She liked a bustle about her, thought women should be provocative, demanding, narcissistic, as if anything less spelled failure, unpopularity, spinsterishness. She had no time for the new woman, with her bold sexist demands, thinking such women forfeited too much and made fools of themselves into the bargain. She herself preferred the idea of winning concessions from men, and saw no shame in doing so..” (page 122)
Brookner fans should find this book to be a worthwhile, satisfying reading experience.
This book was first published in 1988.
Each individual characterization has depth, with attention to detail. Their mannerism, values and idiosyncrasies are well described. For example, Hartmann’s wife Yvette, is a glamorous, well groomed woman who shares Hartmann’s passion for life. Brookner describes her:
“She liked a bustle about her, thought women should be provocative, demanding, narcissistic, as if anything less spelled failure, unpopularity, spinsterishness. She had no time for the new woman, with her bold sexist demands, thinking such women forfeited too much and made fools of themselves into the bargain. She herself preferred the idea of winning concessions from men, and saw no shame in doing so..” (page 122)
Brookner fans should find this book to be a worthwhile, satisfying reading experience.
This book was first published in 1988.
October 28, 2018
Stunning. I should have paced myself but I couldn’t let it go. It’s poignant, shot through with those threads of melancholy that are so quintessentially Brookner, but at the same time there is an optimism which strangely makes it even more moving. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.
April 7, 2018
Brookner's interior worlds are always bigger than the physical one, and Latecomers is a funny and painful dissection of memories and aging against a carefully constructed domestic backdrop that is as monotonous as it is disquieting. As always, I loved it.
June 24, 2014
This is my fourth Brookner and it won’t be my last. There’s been no logic to my selection, just whatever one happens to come my way, and it’s pretty easy to see why those who like her really like her but also why her detractors accuse her of simply writing the same book over and over. Her palate is not a broad one and you can think of her as limited or you can call her a specialist; I’m not sure at this stage in her life either description would worry her because this is what she’s done and you can take her or leave her. I think she’s probably my favourite female author. I’m not sure I’ve read more than two books by any other woman and the list of female authors I have read is not an extensive one but I do find myself drawn back to this woman. I could easily pick up another book by her tomorrow.
What amazes me about her—and I don’t think that’s too strong a word (hence the five stars)—is her ability to write page after page of what really amounts to little more than description—and minute descriptions at that—and yet keep my interest. I start to bore myself if I have to write more than a couple of sentences and I think this is why she continues to fascinate me because she does what I can’t do and does it so well.
Latecomers is a family saga in essence despite the fact she gets through these lives in a mere 224 pages and yet someone manages to devote and entire chapter to a shopping trip and it not feel either out of place or overkill. She begins with the book’s central characters, Hartmann and Fibich, who come to London as German refugees, meet at boarding school and become lifelong friends, closer than most brothers. I only highlighted one extract as I was reading the book:
They become very successful—firstly in the unlikely profession of greeting cards, “greetings cards, of a cruel and tasteless nature, which [pay] their way very nicely for about twenty years, until Hartmann, who did little work but was valued for his Fingerspitzengefühl [lovely term], his flair, his sixth sense, suggested that the market in this commodity was self-limiting, and that there were fortunes to be made in photocopying machines.” They marry wives that suit their personalities who somehow also manage to become friends, have kids—the wrong kids it has to be said and by that I mean the Hartmanns would’ve been happier with the Fibichs’ son and the Fibichs would’ve been happier with the Hartmanns’ daughter—watch them grow up, marry and have children of their own. Mostly they manage to be proud of their families or at least never too ashamed. Despite never being short of a bob or two—they don’t have to think twice about buying a flat for their kids or hiring a nanny to help them out—these two men live basically ordinary lives which revolve around work, food and appearances.
Both men are called Thomas and so refer to each other by their surnames—as, interestingly, do their wives—but I do think Brookner is making a point by giving both men the same name—I say this because I did exactly the same in my own novel Milligan and Murphy where both brothers are called John—because it suggests that they’re two halves of the same composite individual and the simple fact is they do complement each other very nicely. They buy flats in the same building and spend much of their spare time in each other’s company. The odds of them finding two wives who could accept each man’s very different friend is nothing short of miraculous.
Of the two main characters—although to be fair entire chapters are devoted to the wives and children—I was drawn to Fibich because he’s the one who struggles the most with who he is. He’s the one who, in his sixties, ends up having to take trip back to Berlin to face his past, a thing although Hartmann is supportive of he would never need to do. To be fair I couldn’t really relate to anyone in the book—the two I disliked the most were Hartmann’s wife, “Yvette, who possesse[d] an almost fabulous self-regard, a wonderful body and a childlike lack of sexual response,” and Fibich’s son who could be similarly described although he does have a more grown-up (and modern) attitude towards sex. Everyone is wrapped up in his or her own wee world and although this is me calling the pot black, being that way is fine but reading about self-absorbed people can be a bit wearing which, again, is when Brookner surprises me because she holds my interest. I’m not sure I ever got to the stage of caring about these people but I was absorbed by them.
So, five stars. Had I reviewed this on my blog I might’ve been a bit more cautious realising that the book’s not going to be to everyone’s tastes but on Goodreads I’m more subjective. I liked it. If I could’ve managed to get through the book in a single day I would’ve.
What amazes me about her—and I don’t think that’s too strong a word (hence the five stars)—is her ability to write page after page of what really amounts to little more than description—and minute descriptions at that—and yet keep my interest. I start to bore myself if I have to write more than a couple of sentences and I think this is why she continues to fascinate me because she does what I can’t do and does it so well.
Latecomers is a family saga in essence despite the fact she gets through these lives in a mere 224 pages and yet someone manages to devote and entire chapter to a shopping trip and it not feel either out of place or overkill. She begins with the book’s central characters, Hartmann and Fibich, who come to London as German refugees, meet at boarding school and become lifelong friends, closer than most brothers. I only highlighted one extract as I was reading the book:
In the office both Myers and Goodman were apt to be stimulated to unusual loquacity on the subject of past days, days from the beginnings of their lives, and their anecdotes struck Hartmann and Fibich as uninteresting, insignificant. Both felt cut off from such attachments, and also from the need to sentimentalize them, knowing instinctively how endangered they were in this respect. Nostalgia is only for the securely based.Neither men can remember much of their past. Fibich, for example, clings to “an image of himself as a very small, very plump boy, engulfed in a large wing chair which he knew to be called the Voltaire, feeling lazy, replete, and secure in the dying light of a winter afternoon.” Hartmann “from his earliest days … remembered scenes that might have been devised by Proust” but of the two of them he dwells the least on that time; “he had survived: that was all that mattered in any life.”
They become very successful—firstly in the unlikely profession of greeting cards, “greetings cards, of a cruel and tasteless nature, which [pay] their way very nicely for about twenty years, until Hartmann, who did little work but was valued for his Fingerspitzengefühl [lovely term], his flair, his sixth sense, suggested that the market in this commodity was self-limiting, and that there were fortunes to be made in photocopying machines.” They marry wives that suit their personalities who somehow also manage to become friends, have kids—the wrong kids it has to be said and by that I mean the Hartmanns would’ve been happier with the Fibichs’ son and the Fibichs would’ve been happier with the Hartmanns’ daughter—watch them grow up, marry and have children of their own. Mostly they manage to be proud of their families or at least never too ashamed. Despite never being short of a bob or two—they don’t have to think twice about buying a flat for their kids or hiring a nanny to help them out—these two men live basically ordinary lives which revolve around work, food and appearances.
Both men are called Thomas and so refer to each other by their surnames—as, interestingly, do their wives—but I do think Brookner is making a point by giving both men the same name—I say this because I did exactly the same in my own novel Milligan and Murphy where both brothers are called John—because it suggests that they’re two halves of the same composite individual and the simple fact is they do complement each other very nicely. They buy flats in the same building and spend much of their spare time in each other’s company. The odds of them finding two wives who could accept each man’s very different friend is nothing short of miraculous.
Of the two main characters—although to be fair entire chapters are devoted to the wives and children—I was drawn to Fibich because he’s the one who struggles the most with who he is. He’s the one who, in his sixties, ends up having to take trip back to Berlin to face his past, a thing although Hartmann is supportive of he would never need to do. To be fair I couldn’t really relate to anyone in the book—the two I disliked the most were Hartmann’s wife, “Yvette, who possesse[d] an almost fabulous self-regard, a wonderful body and a childlike lack of sexual response,” and Fibich’s son who could be similarly described although he does have a more grown-up (and modern) attitude towards sex. Everyone is wrapped up in his or her own wee world and although this is me calling the pot black, being that way is fine but reading about self-absorbed people can be a bit wearing which, again, is when Brookner surprises me because she holds my interest. I’m not sure I ever got to the stage of caring about these people but I was absorbed by them.
So, five stars. Had I reviewed this on my blog I might’ve been a bit more cautious realising that the book’s not going to be to everyone’s tastes but on Goodreads I’m more subjective. I liked it. If I could’ve managed to get through the book in a single day I would’ve.
December 30, 2018
Fine prose. Strong on character, lean on story. Surprisingly upbeat and funny. Of course there's also the "melancholic" character. It wouldn't be Brookner without one.
January 20, 2023
This is a tactful and tender story about two Holocaust survivors. I'm hesitating to use those words; Brookner doesn't, and Hartmann and Fibich, her main characters, would never. It's a story about people regaining and maintaining their dignity by chosing their words carefully or leaving most of them unsaid.
It's astounding to me how her novels work. She's never subtle, but also never crude or heavy-handed. Everything is right there at the surface, but the depths seem unfathomable. Her novels are overwritten and understated at the same time, full of gaps and redundancies.
It's astounding to me how her novels work. She's never subtle, but also never crude or heavy-handed. Everything is right there at the surface, but the depths seem unfathomable. Her novels are overwritten and understated at the same time, full of gaps and redundancies.
January 27, 2013
I don't know why the following killer two-sentences moved me so much that I was prepared to lose my position on a jam-packed commuter train just so I could find a pencil from my bag and underline it, but it did, and here it is:
'I look tired,' Yvette said with some surprise, scanning her face under the cruel lighting. Not tired, thought Chrstine: it is more serious than that".
'I look tired,' Yvette said with some surprise, scanning her face under the cruel lighting. Not tired, thought Chrstine: it is more serious than that".
December 12, 2017
Latecomers sounded like a joyful anomaly in Anita Brookner's work, which I have come to view as a series of incredibly similar novels, following, as she does, largely female characters with the same traits, and problems in their usually domestic-based lives. Published in 1988, Latecomers was inspired by the Kindertransport, which evacuated Jewish children from Germany to Britain during the Second World War.
Helen Dunmore has written a lovely introduction to the volume, in which she calls Latecomers 'a moving, compassionate portrayal of how we confront the past and live with the present'. She goes on to say that 'The brilliance of Latecomers lies in the way every cherished domestic detail is set against an immense dark canvas.'
Hartmann and Fibich have been best friends since meeting at the English school they both attended. Both are named Thomas, hence Brookner's decision to call them by their surnames. Of them, Dunmore writes 'These two, united against the miseries of the school, become each other's family and remain so for the rest of their lives.' Hartmann is the first character whom we meet. Brookner writes that at this point, 'He was now middle-aged, in the closing stages of middle-age, even old, he daringly thought. He had an impressionistic attitude towards his age, as he did towards his daughter's marriage, sometimes resigned to it, sometimes deciding to ignore it entirely.'
The men 'respond to their shared history in different ways', and are markedly different characters. Hartmann is confident, taking an awful lot of pleasure from food; Fibich is more timid, and has an unhealthy relationship with food, hoarding it but finding the process of eating rather a chore. 'Fibich,' writes Brookner, 'with his anxious mournful temperament, had nurturing instincts, although what he longed for was to be in receipt of those instincts from someone else. Yet it seemed that this would never be.' The contrast between both men, despite being so close, did work well, but they felt like rather typical characters; there was very little about either which surprised me whilst reading.
Brookner also follows several close family members of both Hartmann and Fibich, and whilst this gives the book a little more scope, it feels like rather an inward-facing novel. As ever, Brookner appears more concerned with how people feel than what they do. Despite the novel looking rather different on the face of it, there are still rather a lot of similarities which can be drawn between Latecomers and her other novels: portraits of people, albeit largely men rather than women, are presented at length here; the style of Brookner's prose is rather old-fashioned, and on occasion a little stuffy; and there is actually relatively little included with regard to the plot of the book.
Despite the Kindertransport being one of the elements which drew me toward Latecomers, it is barely mentioned; rather, the novel begins when Hartmann and Fibich are already in England. I thought that the Kindertransport, as well as elements of the Holocaust which still affect both boys despite their being in a different country, would be more of a focus than they were. So much more could have been made of these aspects, making the novel stronger as a result. Brookner's oversight really let Latecomers down for me.
Whilst Dunmore believes that there is 'a good deal of comedy in this essentially tragic novel', I must admit that from a modern perspective, I did not find it overly amusing. The asides which Brookner clearly intended to be humorous felt very dated. There are certainly some acerbic remarks which have stood the test of time, but, like much of Brookner's fiction, Latecomers is very of its time, and does not translate that well into the twenty-first century. Of course, some of what she writes about is still relevant, but Latecomers, overall, feels like a very secluded 1980s novel, a little underwhelming and predictable in both its characters and plot.
Helen Dunmore has written a lovely introduction to the volume, in which she calls Latecomers 'a moving, compassionate portrayal of how we confront the past and live with the present'. She goes on to say that 'The brilliance of Latecomers lies in the way every cherished domestic detail is set against an immense dark canvas.'
Hartmann and Fibich have been best friends since meeting at the English school they both attended. Both are named Thomas, hence Brookner's decision to call them by their surnames. Of them, Dunmore writes 'These two, united against the miseries of the school, become each other's family and remain so for the rest of their lives.' Hartmann is the first character whom we meet. Brookner writes that at this point, 'He was now middle-aged, in the closing stages of middle-age, even old, he daringly thought. He had an impressionistic attitude towards his age, as he did towards his daughter's marriage, sometimes resigned to it, sometimes deciding to ignore it entirely.'
The men 'respond to their shared history in different ways', and are markedly different characters. Hartmann is confident, taking an awful lot of pleasure from food; Fibich is more timid, and has an unhealthy relationship with food, hoarding it but finding the process of eating rather a chore. 'Fibich,' writes Brookner, 'with his anxious mournful temperament, had nurturing instincts, although what he longed for was to be in receipt of those instincts from someone else. Yet it seemed that this would never be.' The contrast between both men, despite being so close, did work well, but they felt like rather typical characters; there was very little about either which surprised me whilst reading.
Brookner also follows several close family members of both Hartmann and Fibich, and whilst this gives the book a little more scope, it feels like rather an inward-facing novel. As ever, Brookner appears more concerned with how people feel than what they do. Despite the novel looking rather different on the face of it, there are still rather a lot of similarities which can be drawn between Latecomers and her other novels: portraits of people, albeit largely men rather than women, are presented at length here; the style of Brookner's prose is rather old-fashioned, and on occasion a little stuffy; and there is actually relatively little included with regard to the plot of the book.
Despite the Kindertransport being one of the elements which drew me toward Latecomers, it is barely mentioned; rather, the novel begins when Hartmann and Fibich are already in England. I thought that the Kindertransport, as well as elements of the Holocaust which still affect both boys despite their being in a different country, would be more of a focus than they were. So much more could have been made of these aspects, making the novel stronger as a result. Brookner's oversight really let Latecomers down for me.
Whilst Dunmore believes that there is 'a good deal of comedy in this essentially tragic novel', I must admit that from a modern perspective, I did not find it overly amusing. The asides which Brookner clearly intended to be humorous felt very dated. There are certainly some acerbic remarks which have stood the test of time, but, like much of Brookner's fiction, Latecomers is very of its time, and does not translate that well into the twenty-first century. Of course, some of what she writes about is still relevant, but Latecomers, overall, feels like a very secluded 1980s novel, a little underwhelming and predictable in both its characters and plot.
July 19, 2009
When I read one of Brookner's novels its like hearing the life story of a close friend of the family. Lovely gems, all.
November 7, 2022
The English writer and art historian Anita Brookner is well known for her exquisitely-crafted novels of loneliness and isolation, typically featuring unmarried women living quiet, unfulfilling lives while waiting for their married lovers to make fleeting appearances. Latecomers – Brookner’s eighth – is somewhat different from the norm as it features two male protagonists, Hartmann and Fibich, who come to England as Jewish refugees via the Kindertransport evacuation in WW2. It’s a remarkably moving book, right up there with Brooker’s best, and a certainty for my 2022 reading highlights.
Having met at a Surrey boarding school where they bonded through a shared history, Hartmann and Fibich enjoy a close friendship that lasts for life. In a sense, they are like brothers, sharing an adolescence, a successful business relationship and many aspects of their adult lives – even their flats are situated together in the same apartment block.
Although the two friends rarely think alike on any subject, their personalities complement one another perfectly – a genuine case of how opposites can attract. While Hartman is optimistic, content, and at ease with his life, Fibich is anxious, melancholy and self-effacing, a demeanour that prevents him from enjoying the fruits of their success. As such, Fibich’s life is marked by deep-rooted anxiety, a detachment or isolation from those around him. (Interestingly, one manifestation of these differences surfaces in the friends’ attitudes to food. Hartman adores fine cuisine, the sensual pleasures of different tastes and experiences, while Fibich finds it different to tolerate anything rich – plain, simple dishes are all he can manage, with the occasional rush of sugar to prevent a collapse.)
Both men are latecomers, having escaped Nazi Germany, an experience that has shaped their lives in remarkably different ways. So, while Hartmann lives in the moment, relishing life’s little pleasures in all their elegance and voluptuousness, Fibich is burdened by the weight of history. In short, Fibich yearns for insights into those early years in Berlin – only then might he be able to establish a true sense of his own identity and hopefully find some kind of peace.
Essentially, the book follows these two men over their adult lives, tracing this unwavering friendship through their business partnership, respective marriages and the growth of their children, all set against the backdrop of the spectre of war.
The novel’s success rests almost entirely on the strength of its characterisation, an area where Brookner excels. The bond between the protagonists is beautifully portrayed – two very different men who coexist through an unspoken bond of mutual comfort and support, despite their individual habits and schools of thought.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2022...
Having met at a Surrey boarding school where they bonded through a shared history, Hartmann and Fibich enjoy a close friendship that lasts for life. In a sense, they are like brothers, sharing an adolescence, a successful business relationship and many aspects of their adult lives – even their flats are situated together in the same apartment block.
Although the two friends rarely think alike on any subject, their personalities complement one another perfectly – a genuine case of how opposites can attract. While Hartman is optimistic, content, and at ease with his life, Fibich is anxious, melancholy and self-effacing, a demeanour that prevents him from enjoying the fruits of their success. As such, Fibich’s life is marked by deep-rooted anxiety, a detachment or isolation from those around him. (Interestingly, one manifestation of these differences surfaces in the friends’ attitudes to food. Hartman adores fine cuisine, the sensual pleasures of different tastes and experiences, while Fibich finds it different to tolerate anything rich – plain, simple dishes are all he can manage, with the occasional rush of sugar to prevent a collapse.)
Both men are latecomers, having escaped Nazi Germany, an experience that has shaped their lives in remarkably different ways. So, while Hartmann lives in the moment, relishing life’s little pleasures in all their elegance and voluptuousness, Fibich is burdened by the weight of history. In short, Fibich yearns for insights into those early years in Berlin – only then might he be able to establish a true sense of his own identity and hopefully find some kind of peace.
Essentially, the book follows these two men over their adult lives, tracing this unwavering friendship through their business partnership, respective marriages and the growth of their children, all set against the backdrop of the spectre of war.
The novel’s success rests almost entirely on the strength of its characterisation, an area where Brookner excels. The bond between the protagonists is beautifully portrayed – two very different men who coexist through an unspoken bond of mutual comfort and support, despite their individual habits and schools of thought.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2022...
February 14, 2017
A while ago I was perusing the book shelves(which I straighten out when I go there) of the stuff trailer at our local transfer station(dump) and spied a veritable pile of Anita Brookners - eight in all. I'd vaguely heard of her so I took them home - rescued really, as they throw all the books away when there are too many of them. They've sat on my bookshelves unread until now. I've been reading R. Russo's memoir "Elsewhere" and he mentions AB several times. Apparently he recommends her writing, so here I go ...
So far I'm very much enjoying my first "Brookner" a lot. Who are these people she writes about? They seem to be some of those "English middle-class nobodies" that Eleanor Bron was referring to in "Two for the Road." And yet, AB manages quite nicely to make their lives ever so interesting. She's witty, perceptive, caring and respectful of the humanity of her subjects and its easy to see why Richard Russo likes her stuff. She takes her time in building each of the backstories of her four protagonists and begins to weave the threads together. Henry Green and Anita Brookner - two very nice discoveries for me lately!
- Alice Munro, Alice McDermott, Iris Murdoch, Anne Tyler ...
Moving along and still not a lot going on here, just people living their challenging lives. Being themselves seems to be enough of a challenge. Toto seems to be the one who will spur some action, probably not in a happy way either. To read and enjoy this you've got to be "down" with AB's way of writing. Back and forth, here and there, back-filling and deepening our understanding of her 4(make that 6) characters. Reminds me of William Trevor with more words and fewer ominous empty spaces. As with WT, however, you need to read every word. Also, this is very funny at times. Humor is not usually an aspect of Trevor's writing.
- The Fibich/father-Toto/son contrast is excellent. Toto is a great creation - reminds me of Wacker in Nobody's Fool. Pure id on the loose.
- One theme here is the tenacious grip that the past has on the lives and personalities of the characters. But also, how the accidents of genetics may produce a surprise like Toto, who seems to be unrelated to either of his parents.
Finished the other night with this excellent book. I'm so glad I have many other AB novels on my shelf to choose from after reading my first one. I'll give this a 4.25* rating, which rounds down to 4*. Why not a 5*? I guess because it's a bit quiet and over laden with storytelling and sparse of dialogue(as others have noted).
- As far as I can recall I'd never heard of being "turfed out" until "Cloud Atlas" a couple of weeks ago and here it is again!
So far I'm very much enjoying my first "Brookner" a lot. Who are these people she writes about? They seem to be some of those "English middle-class nobodies" that Eleanor Bron was referring to in "Two for the Road." And yet, AB manages quite nicely to make their lives ever so interesting. She's witty, perceptive, caring and respectful of the humanity of her subjects and its easy to see why Richard Russo likes her stuff. She takes her time in building each of the backstories of her four protagonists and begins to weave the threads together. Henry Green and Anita Brookner - two very nice discoveries for me lately!
- Alice Munro, Alice McDermott, Iris Murdoch, Anne Tyler ...
Moving along and still not a lot going on here, just people living their challenging lives. Being themselves seems to be enough of a challenge. Toto seems to be the one who will spur some action, probably not in a happy way either. To read and enjoy this you've got to be "down" with AB's way of writing. Back and forth, here and there, back-filling and deepening our understanding of her 4(make that 6) characters. Reminds me of William Trevor with more words and fewer ominous empty spaces. As with WT, however, you need to read every word. Also, this is very funny at times. Humor is not usually an aspect of Trevor's writing.
- The Fibich/father-Toto/son contrast is excellent. Toto is a great creation - reminds me of Wacker in Nobody's Fool. Pure id on the loose.
- One theme here is the tenacious grip that the past has on the lives and personalities of the characters. But also, how the accidents of genetics may produce a surprise like Toto, who seems to be unrelated to either of his parents.
Finished the other night with this excellent book. I'm so glad I have many other AB novels on my shelf to choose from after reading my first one. I'll give this a 4.25* rating, which rounds down to 4*. Why not a 5*? I guess because it's a bit quiet and over laden with storytelling and sparse of dialogue(as others have noted).
- As far as I can recall I'd never heard of being "turfed out" until "Cloud Atlas" a couple of weeks ago and here it is again!
March 4, 2013
1988.
Bravo! How does Brookner do it! In so few lines she shows you a character, a personality, a relationship.
This is not a one-main-character novel. You get two men, their two wives, the two children, all at various ages. Plus some great walk-on parts by Yvette's elderly [French] mother, the window-washer, a girlfriend of the son...
Brilliant theme [one of several] to contrast the two couples' emotional responses to their children - each couple feeling much more at home with the other couple's child. Hits home for me -- how DO you feel when your child is so different from yourself? Do you take it personally? Can you still get along?
Much is left to your imagine, though many clues are given. It would be fun to compare notes with another reader -- What do you make of THIS? Why do you think he felt THAT?
Brookner [ as we have seen in some other novels of hers] seems equally at home in continental Europe as in England, in this novel we are briefly in Berlin and the south of France.
Christine and husband are more the "typical" Brookner characters -- troubled, painfully lacking in self-confidence. Yvette and Hartmann are marvelously unusual, at least to me. One can psychologize to one's heart's content in this book!
Bravo! How does Brookner do it! In so few lines she shows you a character, a personality, a relationship.
This is not a one-main-character novel. You get two men, their two wives, the two children, all at various ages. Plus some great walk-on parts by Yvette's elderly [French] mother, the window-washer, a girlfriend of the son...
Brilliant theme [one of several] to contrast the two couples' emotional responses to their children - each couple feeling much more at home with the other couple's child. Hits home for me -- how DO you feel when your child is so different from yourself? Do you take it personally? Can you still get along?
Much is left to your imagine, though many clues are given. It would be fun to compare notes with another reader -- What do you make of THIS? Why do you think he felt THAT?
Brookner [ as we have seen in some other novels of hers] seems equally at home in continental Europe as in England, in this novel we are briefly in Berlin and the south of France.
Christine and husband are more the "typical" Brookner characters -- troubled, painfully lacking in self-confidence. Yvette and Hartmann are marvelously unusual, at least to me. One can psychologize to one's heart's content in this book!
September 30, 2016
I wanted to read this after reading a recent Guardian article on Brookner's novels other than the Booker winner Hotel du Lac, which was the only one I had read. This is a poised and reflective study of memory, loss and how different people handle it. At its centre are Hartmann and Fibich, lifelong friends and business partners who met as schoolboy refugees from Germany in the Kindertransports. Brookner contrasts the "voluptuary" Hartmann with the haunted brooding Fibich, and gets inside the minds of all of her characters, drawing warm and humorous portraits of a close family against the backdrop of darker events.
July 31, 2015
As Holocaust novels go, "Latecomers" stands on its own, addressing as it does two successful British entrepreneurs who escaped as mostly unaware children. The deeper of the two is haunted; the other, shallow and vain. A bromance of sorts, Anita Brookner's novel is, like many of her works, about half-realized lives, and as such, a cautionary tale that also elicits our sympathies for people we wish were a little bit braver.
April 29, 2019
Not my favourite Brookner, but no faults with the writing. Jewish refugees Fibich and Hartmann are evacuated from Germany to England. They live pretty ordinary lives as neighbours and best friends, running a greetings card company together. There is only one real moment of crisis when Fibich returns to Germany to try and find out more about his history. It's a story of friendship and family, rather uneventful, but tender, and full of real people with all their foibles.
3.5 stars.
3.5 stars.
March 27, 2022
Anita Brookner is an enigma. She's such a fine stylist you can almost forgive her anything, and her novels are always well honed, but one often has a sense she has said it before, and perhaps better. Latecomers is another such novel she steadily produced every other year, all the way until her death.
It's a permutation of her usual theme of loneliness, about two Jewish males who settled in Britain from Germany, woven with flashbacks of the Holocaust. In parts beautifully written, yet there's a moribund feel to it. If it comes at the end of a long life and career, it will be understandable. But this comes midway in Brookner's late-starting career, another prototype of a life unlived that Brookner seems to be churning out, book after book. Sadly this grieving seems autobiographical, reappearing every year under a different guise. One longs for Brookner to write something life-affirming, but now that she's gone, we only have these novels, which tear me both ways.
It's a permutation of her usual theme of loneliness, about two Jewish males who settled in Britain from Germany, woven with flashbacks of the Holocaust. In parts beautifully written, yet there's a moribund feel to it. If it comes at the end of a long life and career, it will be understandable. But this comes midway in Brookner's late-starting career, another prototype of a life unlived that Brookner seems to be churning out, book after book. Sadly this grieving seems autobiographical, reappearing every year under a different guise. One longs for Brookner to write something life-affirming, but now that she's gone, we only have these novels, which tear me both ways.
July 11, 2018
4.5 stars!
May 31, 2016
There are so many new words in any Brookner book that I feel that I should take the SATs after reading one. Such as:
Fingerspitzengefühl is a German term, literally meaning "finger tips feeling" and meaning intuitive flair or instinct.
Voluptuary definition, a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury and sensual pleasure.
Brookner's books are very dense and focus more on the characters than plot. In this case, two boys come to England from Germany; one adapts easily to his new home while the other acts as any orphan--what is my background? Where am I from? Where is my home? All discussed while drinking many cups of tea.
"You are not a survivor. You are a latecomer, like me. You had a bad start. Why go back to the beginning? One thing is certain. You can't ever start again," says Hartmann to Fibich.
They marry wives who are mirrors of themselves yet all four remain friends for decades--the men go in business together, they only live a floor apart and the one marries the other's cousin. (Bits of this reminded me of The Two-Family House that I recently read.)
Usually I feel more satisfied after reading one of Brookner's books, but not this time. Maybe because it didn't feature a woman?
Fingerspitzengefühl is a German term, literally meaning "finger tips feeling" and meaning intuitive flair or instinct.
Voluptuary definition, a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury and sensual pleasure.
Brookner's books are very dense and focus more on the characters than plot. In this case, two boys come to England from Germany; one adapts easily to his new home while the other acts as any orphan--what is my background? Where am I from? Where is my home? All discussed while drinking many cups of tea.
"You are not a survivor. You are a latecomer, like me. You had a bad start. Why go back to the beginning? One thing is certain. You can't ever start again," says Hartmann to Fibich.
They marry wives who are mirrors of themselves yet all four remain friends for decades--the men go in business together, they only live a floor apart and the one marries the other's cousin. (Bits of this reminded me of The Two-Family House that I recently read.)
Usually I feel more satisfied after reading one of Brookner's books, but not this time. Maybe because it didn't feature a woman?
February 16, 2021
A beautiful and touching book. Anita Brookner writes about friendship, relationships and family with searing honesty. She really gets under the skin of her characters in a beautifully crafted story. In essence it’s about two boys transported from pre-war Germany to London; how they meet and forge a lifelong friendship. Hartmann is able to move onwards and enjoy his life whilst Fibich dwells and is overcome by his lost past. A gem, probably my favourite of her books so far.
June 16, 2012
I really enjoyed the characterization/character study nature of it. I thought there was some unevenness in depiction, however and I would have liked a bit more understanding of Toto. He didn't feel real or well-done individually or in his relationships with his parents. At times Brookner almost seems to suggest him as sociopathic and none of that fit the rest of the novel. That disconnection is what pushed this down from a 4 (or possibly more) to a 3 for me.
Hartmann and Fibich's friendship is just heartwarming, as is the their relationships with Yvette and Christine - a wonderful foursome.
Hartmann and Fibich's friendship is just heartwarming, as is the their relationships with Yvette and Christine - a wonderful foursome.
August 17, 2013
I've found a new author, and she's prolific. Will she maintain my interest and the standard I enjoyed so much in 'Latecomers'? I intend to find out.
'Hartmann, a voluptuary, lowered a spoonful of brown sugar crystals into his coffee cup, then placed a square of bitter dark chocolate on his tongue, and while it was dissolving, lit his first cigarette.'
Opening sentence 'Latecomers' Anita Brookner. Delicious sentence - perhaps 'a voluptuary' is an oxymoron? Not to nit pick, the rest of the book is as beautiful. The language, the insights, the skill, the simple story, are exquisite, and absorbing.
'Hartmann, a voluptuary, lowered a spoonful of brown sugar crystals into his coffee cup, then placed a square of bitter dark chocolate on his tongue, and while it was dissolving, lit his first cigarette.'
Opening sentence 'Latecomers' Anita Brookner. Delicious sentence - perhaps 'a voluptuary' is an oxymoron? Not to nit pick, the rest of the book is as beautiful. The language, the insights, the skill, the simple story, are exquisite, and absorbing.
March 10, 2019
The prose in this novel was so beautiful I found myself reading some paragraphs 2-3 times just to fully grasp the meaning. The characterisation is flawless and makes for a moving and powerful story.
March 23, 2021
As I read this, I kept thinking of a David Bowie song, "Sons of the Silent Age": "Sons of the silent age / make love only once but dream and dream. / They don't walk; they just glide in and out of life. / They never die; they just go to sleep one day./ Baby, I won't ever let you go. / All I see is all I know..." But in the end, instead of focussing only on their limitations and their fears and their endless shrinking from the disturbing messiness of life, she finds dignity and worth and even joy in these characters' lives and in their connections to each other. It becomes a remarkably compassionate and moving book in its closing chapters.
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