Anita Brookner's concern with photography as postmodern realism.

What is it about?

In Anita Brookner's novels, the authority of the photograph's apparently transparent reference to the real world is undermined to become an ironic commentary on the narrative illusion of control. Brookner's concern, as a postmodern realist, is with both the illegitimacy and the psychological necessity of preserving appearances.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

The time is ripe for the fuller articulation of an Anita Brookner whose writing was always more subtle, more far-reaching, more generative, than was allowed by those who saw her as a simple realist with a chip on her shoulder about lonely, disappointed women. This preface is the introduction to Laurence Petit's special issue of Etudes Anglaises which aims to give just that kind of articulation. For, though the terms and concerns of contemporary theoretical debates may have shifted in the last twenty-five years, the relevance of Brookner’s insights into the human necessity for signification has not.

Perspectives