Alan is devoted to his mother. His father died while he was still a teenager. Mother and son became very close, always there for each other. Alice was wise and understanding and did everything she could for him, but she could help him in the one area he needed; she could not set him free to learn about relationships with women. He was naive; he just didn’t know how to be. He just wasn’t equipped to deal with Sarah. He became obsessed with her instead.
Sarah was beautiful, charismatic and totally unavailable. She avoided any emotional intimacy, any real conversation. She could never commit to a man but she enjoyed the seductive power that she could exert over them. They, in their turn, were fascinated by her; they longed to possess her, and although she might permit an exciting physical intimacy to those she felt safe with, they could never know her emotionally. And so it was that she allowed the naively polite Alan to consort with her in a brief relationship of silent passion. For Alan, their relationship contained the toxic ingredients of addiction; sexual gratification and emotional abstinence. He longed to know her, to have a proper relationship with her, but she refused to make arrangements to see him and was frequently absent from her flat. And so he became hooked. For Sarah it had the dangerous excitement of sadism.
Frustrated and hurt by Sarah’s behaviour and in weakened state of illness he allows himself to become looked after by Angela, who is one of Sarah’s acolyte’s and has pursued him relentlessly. Angela loves the fantasy of marriage and children, but cannot face the realities and responsibilities. She is scared of men, frightened of their passions. She would rather avoid the whole messy, violent business of sex. She needs Alan to protect her from the dangers of the world, to look after her like a child – so she takes the opportunity to look after him. Nevertheless they get married and soon she is pregnant.
Then Sarah turns up again unexpectedly. Alan is thrown off balance and pursues her to Paris, but she doesn’t take him seriously and does not keep his assignation. While away, his friend and partner, Brian, calls; Angela has had a fall and gone into premature labour. She has lost their baby and is in a state of shock, unable to cope. She blames Alan for everything and refuses to leave her bed. Jennie, fragile and so needy of love, comes in every day to care for her, but she shows no sign of getting better. Alan tells Jennie not to come again whereupon Angela declines and takes an overdose of antidepressants and dies.
Alan feels guilty and becomes depressed. It takes him years before he feels strong enough to relinquish his preoccupation with Sarah. He realises he is not equipped for a stable relationship with a woman and lives a solitary though not unhappy existence in London and Switzerland. He never sees Sarah again.
This is Anita Brookner at her best. She has a deep understanding of the fragile and the lonely. Her thoughtful prose explores what it means to lead a solitary life, the compensations and the pain of it. ‘Altered States’ (1996), like most of her novels, is a skilful take on the psychological impact of inadequate socialisation, a territory she knows well. Each of the three major characters, Alan, Sarah and Angela, have not been able to grow up. Alan is socially naive and can neither play the part of lover or husband. Angela is like the anorexic who can’t face the responsibilities of marriage and ultimately reverts to the passive dependency of childhood. Sarah is forever evasive of the reality of an adult relationship, but enjoys the power and drama of endless flirtation. Each has been damaged by a controlling and in varying degrees emotionally abstinent parent
Altered States is a book of our time. We live in a narcissistic society; in which many children have their material needs, food and diversions and toys, supplied in abundance but suffer deprivation of proper emotional communication. Television and computer games do not equip kids or social responsibilities; they grow up acutely conscious of their own needs and finding it difficult to make and keep relationships. Thirty five per cent of people living in Britain in 2010 live by themselves. This figure has continued to rise year on year since the eighties as marriage as continued to decline and fail and more and more children end up being brought up by a lone parent. This may look normal. Indeed it is, but the damage runs deep and threatens the stability of society. Psychotherapy, these days, is largely conducted to help people cope with the pain and trauma of a narcissistic personality.
August 14, 2010 at 4:27 am
Altered States…
I found your entry interesting do I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…
September 4, 2010 at 3:09 pm
I found your blog by Googling for the phrase “emotionally abstinent”. I used that phrase in a query letter I’m currently sending out for a novel I’ve written. I was asked by someone who reviewed the query for me if, in fact, I’d meant “emotionally absent” – but I knew that for me, abstinent was the correct word. Your description here of the parent who will not allow a child to grow up – it fits exactly with what I was working to convey. Thank you for the thoughtfully written confirmation and explanation of the living problems caused by that two-word phrase.
September 6, 2010 at 9:48 am
Thank you for your graceful comment, Robin. I would be interested to know the title of your novel.
September 6, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Thank you for asking. The title is The Hiding Place Girl.
In the novel, the mother is narcissistic. This is shown through the (then) young daughter’s perspective as, for example, in an early chapter: …my mother…with her gown and peignoir asphalt strutting and her love of clothes that was much stronger than her love for most people…. The little girl, of course, has no idea that her mother is a narcissist, or what in the world that would mean.
In my query, the line I used which caused the Googling and finding your site in the first place is: I think her troubles with the men in her life and a mother who’s emotionally abstinent but great at baking pies will appeal to boomer readers and their daughters.
Two short excerpts of The Hiding Place Girl have been published in online literary magazines, if you’d like to read a bit – Wilderness House Literary Review, http://www.whlreview.com/no-4.3/fiction/RobinBillings.pdf,
and The Potomac Journal, http://thepotomacjournal.com/issue10/Fiction/Billings.html.
It’s interesting to me that you mentioned Britons today live in a narcissistic society. I am from the American South, and currently live in the metro Washington DC area – we have the same problems here. The notion of ‘community’ has changed quite a bit, in larger metropolitan areas, especially. I see traits now that I equate with the sometimes naked, sometimes underlying selfishness of the narcissist, played out in society, almost always rationalized or repackaged to make it seem as though these qualities were for ‘the greater good’. It’s familiar territory for me, as I’ve witnessed it firsthand on a smaller scale, growing up.
September 7, 2010 at 5:42 am
Thank you. I enjoyed reading your pieces and will order the book.
It’s familiar territory for me as well. I recall my mother’s comment when I pitched up at her house after my wife and I separated. ‘Well,my dear, I’m very sorry for you, but what I keep thinking is, ‘what about me!’. At that, I started laughing and hammed it up. ‘Well that’s what’s upsetting me too, mum – how embarrassing for you and how will we organise your shopping?’ I thought of writing her story sometime; and calling it ‘What about me?’, because it emphasises the link between emotional deprivation and self centredness. Her father died during the first world war when she was just 2 years old and she became the lonely but somewhat pampered little girl in an extended family of uncles and aunts who worked so hard to build up a successful catering business.
But we do seem to live in a society that values entitlement above compassion and community. ‘You deserve it because you’re worth it!’
September 7, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Oh, that is perfect! A perfect example. I felt I was there watching you live through that one. It’s funny that you mention emotional deprivation and self-centredness. I’ve always wondered how my mother, the daiughter of a coal miner in Western Kentucky, could have ended up with such a childish view of the world around her, as though everyone owed her adoration and attention.
Don’t know if you’re on Facebook, but if you are, it would be good to link up. I’m on there with my first and last name, which you have from my email, and I live in Alexandria, Virginia.
September 8, 2010 at 6:38 am
Yes, it would be good to talk more; we share a similar perspective on life. I’ve not explored facebook; perhaps I should, but I’m still somewhat agarophobic of cyberspace. But you can reach me via my website, http://www.nickread.co.uk.