Brian is a profoundly moving meditation on the meaning of solitary life, of art and cinema in shaping one’s perception of and connection with the world, of the hidden depths of human soul often kept private in fear of misunderstanding and stigma, and of the importance of companionship and community. This is a subtle novel of great depth focused on the interiority of life enriched by art. Jeremy Cooper thoughtfully and empathetically chronicled life of a gentle soul spanning thirty years starting in the early 1990s all the way up to the present times. The events such as the 2005 London bombing and the advent of technological revolution like the introduction of smartphones are present in the novel. Also, the book is in a way an ode to London, its topography and rich cultural landscape that the city has to offer. In addition, there are plenty of film references which will be a treat to many cinema lovers.
Brian is a Northern Irish man in his late 30s when we meet him in the novel. In the early years of his professional working life Brian tried his best to socialise but he struggled with the rules of small talk and social cues. He never knew what to say to anyone. He holds a clerical role at the Camden Housing Department, and previously he worked as a clerk at the large builder’s merchant company in Clapham in South London.
Every day of the week he would have his lunch at exactly 2.15 pm at the café off Camden High Street, called Il Castelletto where people like Brian felt safe and wanted. For a number of the regulars to the café, this was the only refuge and often the only form of major human contact of the day for these gentle souls.
“Within a group of people, he felt pushed to the periphery (…). He had joined a book – reading club, mostly of women, jolly, middle-aged, who ridiculed his proposals of novels to read, listened in silence to his halting comments on the book – of – the – month and moved promptly on the topics of their own concerns. In another attempt at company, he took up football (…). This was a failure too, leaving him post-match on Saturday evenings with an even greater sense of isolation. (…) He longed to be included, and dreaded it, equally. During these interim years he had had various jobs and an assortment of rented rooms. His first place in London was the one he had liked best, the dormitory in the St Pancras hostel where he had stayed for years, until Mr Trevor felt obliged to turn him out for being far beyond the age limit. He had eventually ended up alone in his present small, rented flat above the Taj Mahal on Kentish Town.”
At work Brian kept himself to himself and did not establish any meaningful relationships or friendships with his co-workers. He tried to mask his discomfort when dealing with superficiality of people by trying his best not to get noticed. Brian occupied himself double-checking files, correcting and perfecting his system of codes. He preferred spending time alone to spending time with others. Only in his solitude Brian found comfort. He was particularly vulnerable to disproportionate distress at any alternation to his routine, he did not manage surprises well. He shunned all forms of attention and found relief in the safety of repetition. In his private life, he was well organised and was unforgiving of his own errors. Brian was always evading the personal.
In the past Brian would have puzzled for hours, days, on a similar unresolved doubt, slept badly and developed a stomach ache. If he had noticed that he was not worrying, he would have worried about not noticing sooner.
“In his daily life Brian was endlessly anxious, often about the same repeated, insignificant and ridiculous things. (…) Brian physically anticipated in advance the trajectories of each day (…). He was afraid of saying the wrong thing, of having failed to learn from some earlier error which had slipped his mind. (…) Brian kept his possessions to a minimum, nothing left lying around, everything put safely back in its appointed place on completion of use.”
As an antidote to self-inflicted solitude, Brian became a member of the British Film Institute (BFI). Films made him feel less alone. Anonymity remained an integral part of Brian’s pleasure in going to the cinema. Other movie-goers he met at the BFI dd not ask him about his name or what his job was, they only conversed about the film they had just watched. There was “no false familiarity, no banality, no banter”. During these early years of attending the film seances at the BFI, Brian was received with greater warmth by almost everyone among the regulars at the BFI than he had ever experienced in his life. The BFI became his natural home. The cinema raised many questions in his mind about his own life and surrounding world. “In the cinema he disappeared as a person and was accepted as a member of the crowd”. At the BFI he felt almost as if he was being welcomed home. During thirty years of being the BFI member he developed a very intense interest in the old films especially in the post-war Japanese cinema. He enjoyed particularly films by Ingmar Bergman, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Kon Ichikawa, Nagisa Oshima, Yasujiro Ozu, Fellini, Yilmaz Guney, Loach, Kiarostami, Werner Herzog, Agnes Varda, Robert Bresson and Chantal Akerman.
As his retirement approached, Brian had mixed feelings about stopping work. He was anxious about how to occupy the empty days ahead. He felt uncertain in almost everything and felt the overwhelming sense of insecurity. Brian’s overall anxiety led him to consider applying for another job to top up his modest state pension. Also, this is the time of digitalisation of almost of all the spheres of daily life which caused further stress and anxiety for Brian. The arrival of smartphones on which he was not very keen due to the confusion caused by the myriad of styles. In the end he bought the simplest model. The new era also affected the way people watched films which resulted in the number of buffs attending the BFI starting to fall off.
Within three years of his retirement, we witness Brian experiencing problems with his sight and memory. This is the time when we as readers depart Brian.
I cannot possibly express in words how much I loved this story of a solitary man who finds some sense of belonging through the cinema. Brian carefully crafted his existence to avoid disruption to his routine enriched by the cultural landscape of art and cinema and his solitude.
This is a quiet book, yet of profound depth. I absolutely loved this book and Brian has become one of my most beloved literary characters I have ever encountered in my reading experience and definitely one of the most relatable ones. I highly recommend Brain by Jeremy Cooper. I hope that this post will potentially pique your interest in this novel, especially if you seek a character – driven narrative.
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