Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Brookner, Anita (Vol. 134) - Deborah Mason （review date 26 January 1997）

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Deborah Mason （review date 26 January 1997）

SOURCE: “Invisible Man,” in New York Times Book Review, January 26, 1997, p. 12.

[In the following review, Mason offers a positive assessment of Altered States.]

Obsession is a heavily traded public stock, its object just as likely to be New York's Knicks as Anna Karenina's count. Nevertheless, it is most familiarly portrayed in the arts as a catalyst for grandeur, as an agent of high drama. How refreshing, then, to find that Anita Brookner's stinging new novel, Altered States, shows how obsession can also constrict a life, thinning it down to a muted charade of action and feeling.

That life belongs to Alan Sherwood, the kind of highly educated, deeply repressed Brit in whom Ms. Brookner specializes. He is a man whose reflexive politeness and exaggerated devotion to the needs of others conceal his propensity to become, as he puts it, “a lonely fanatic.” A widowed...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. William McPherson （review date 10 February 1985）
   2. Robert Jones （review date 20 September 1985）
   3. Patricia Waugh （essay date 1989）
   4. Jonathan Yardley （review 12 March 1989）
   5. John Updike （review date 1 May 1989）
   6. Rosemary Dinnage （review date 1 June 1989）
   7. Phillip Lopate （review date 11 March 1990）
   8. Joyce Reiser Kornblatt （review date 21 July 1991）
   9. Carolyn Cooke （review date 9 September 1991）
   10. Jane Smiley （review date 22 March 1992）
   11. Constance Casey （review date 12 April 1992）
   12. Ursula Hegi （review date 10 January 1993）
   13. Gisèle Marie Baxter （essay date Summer 1993）
   14. Frank Kermode （review date 19 June 1993）
   15. David Galef （essay date Winter 1994）
   16. Jonathan Yardley （review date 9 January 1994）
   17. Carol Kino （review date 20 February 1994）
   18. John Bayley （review date 18 June 1994）
   19. Linda Simon （review date 8 January 1995）
   20. Frederick Busch （review date 22 January 1995）
   21. Hermione Lee （review date 30 January 1995）
   22. Ann Fisher-Wirth （essay date Spring 1995）
   23. Teresa Waugh （review date 17 June 1995）
   24. Hilary Mantel （review date 14 January 1996）
   25. Anne Roiphe （review date 16-30 December 1996）
   26. Deborah Mason （review date 26 January 1997）
   27. Heller McAlpin （review date 9 February 1997）
   28. Max Egremont （review date 7 June 1997）
   29. Jacqueline Carey （review date 18 January 1998）
   30. Aránzazu Usandizaga （essay date Summer 1998）
   31. Claire Messud （review date 31 January 1999）
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright