“Strangers”

His dairy once full , was now empty. He had been to all the weddings, heard about all the children, attended several funerals, and now, it seemed, was the only survivor.

In Strangers by Anita Brookner, 73-year old Paul Sturgis lives in a one bedroom apartment in South Kensington, the only place he has lived since he moved out of his parent’s large country home decades ago. A lonely child, Paul observed his parents unhappy marriage and hoped to have a different life; one in which he could pursue his love of art with a caring wife who would share his desire for an examined life, children, and close friendships.

Instead, Paul did what was expected of him choosing a conventional career and serving “his life sentence in a bank.”  He dated women and even fell in love twice only to be left by both women who found him boring. Friendships proved just as difficult and were limited to the people he worked with. But even they were not true friends; the friends he shared drinks with after hours or holiday dinners were “of a careless, unseeing type, friends who were unlikely to seek him out for the pleasure of his company” once he stopped working.

Now retired, Paul reflects upon his life and his future hoping he won’t be alone as he ages and dies. He certainly didn’t plan on being alone at his age with only one living relative – a cousin by marriage named Helena, a widow who allows him to infrequently visit her apartment for tea on Sunday afternoons where the conversation is always centered on her but never goes beyond polite conversation.

The most searching question she had ever asked him was “What do you do with yourself all day?” What he wanted from her….was some sort of acknowledgement that he too had a life and a history , even if that was of no interest to her.” It had never occurred to her that his need was for company, or at the very least for conversation.

To avoid the humiliation of spending the Christmas holidays alone, Paul decides to travel to Venice, where he befriends another British tourist on holiday, a middle-aged free spirit named Mrs. Gardner. When Paul returns to London, he runs into one of his old girlfriends who is now single and in despair over the ravages of aging. Despite their self-focused dramas, Paul pursues friendship with both women but finds them unreliable or dismissive. Even though neither of these women show any real feeling for him, he would rather spend time with them than be alone and so he makes himself available to them at their convenience. They tolerate him and he seeks to please them. They are strangers and yet they are not.

A reflective but composed person by nature, Paul seeks to be known and to know yet most people in his universe either don’t want to know him or don’t want him to know them which presents a personal struggle that leads to disappointment again and again. But human nature is resilient and even when Paul realizes his desires have not been met, he won’t settle for the endurance walk; to give up is to let go of life and Paul Sturgis has rarely given up on anything in his life.  He was “free with a freedom he did not value” but would march forward. “After all, he had nothing else to do.”