Brief Lives (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Anita Brookner
- First Published: 1990
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The 1930’s to the late 1980’s
- Setting: London
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Autobiographical fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, 1960’s, Memory, Love or romance, Marriage, 1940’s, 1930’s, Adultery, Singing or singers, London, Loneliness, Old age or elderly people, Nostalgia, Aging
- Locales: London, England
Characters Discussed
Fay Langdon, the narrator, in her late sixties as she tells the story. A rather ordinary woman, she is intelligent and still pretty, though conscious of aging. She becomes nervous and lonely in the late afternoon, and she fights melancholy. Born Fay Dodworth, she believed in the stories of Hollywood musicals and sang romantic songs on the radio. She yearned for happiness and gave up her work for marriage, then spent much of her life waiting for her husband, Owen—and later her lover, Charlie—to come to her. She was unhappy in love, missing intimacy with...
[The entire page is 901 words long]
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