This is the third of Hollinghurst’s four novels. And from what I can gather, the runt of the litter for quite a few of his readers. Not hard to see why, given what it followed: a brace of densely brilliant novels which permit us to richly inhabit the lyric sensibilities of two very sinuous and engaging first-person narrators (writers are still taking up the gauntlet of Lolita).

1. Spell Alan In French

The Spell is a 1998 novel by British author Alan Hollinghurst. Plot introduction. A civil servant falls for a younger man.

The Spell, by contrast, flits among a circle of suggestively drawn but necessarily flatter London men. Hollinghurst doe This is the third of Hollinghurst’s four novels. And from what I can gather, the runt of the litter for quite a few of his readers. Not hard to see why, given what it followed: a brace of densely brilliant novels which permit us to richly inhabit the lyric sensibilities of two very sinuous and engaging first-person narrators (writers are still taking up the gauntlet of Lolita). The Spell, by contrast, flits among a circle of suggestively drawn but necessarily flatter London men. Hollinghurst does the comedy of manners thing superbly, anatomizing with high disabused humor the various nostalgias, jealousies, fears and hopeful fantasies of individuals under different sexual “spells.” The prose is cut to a severe standard, burnished to a glow, and made to reverberate epigrammatically; description often shades into aphorism. This is some of the best English prose of our time.

1. Hollinghurst's prose is as frank and lush as ever in The Spell. He reveals his characters' intricate internal worlds; to the reader's benefit, they are wonderfully observant and self-aware, yet they do not communicate well with one another.
2. When you need this kind of sources, the following book can be a great choice. The spell alan hollinghurst is the PDF of the book. If you really want to be smarter.

The Spell makes me want to re-read The Line of Beauty, as now it seems the book in which Hollinghurst succeeded in combining his talents for both the subjective surrogate first-person voice and the all-seeing lofty observer, anchoring the narration at a definite point of view, Nick’s, while making Nick, because of his anxious, outsider/interloper status, clairvoyantly attentive to the minds and manners of the other characters. I wonder where he’ll go next. Hollinghurst's, which won the 2004 Booker, may be one of the best novels I've read, among those novels in the Forsterian/Jamesian tradition, if such a tradition can exist.

You know what I'm talking about. Novels about the lives of interesting people just a shade more fascinating and a shade better looking than average, whose lives fall in the midst of some greater sociopolitical moment. What's surprising is how that incredible novel came out of the writer who pr Hollinghurst's, which won the 2004 Booker, may be one of the best novels I've read, among those novels in the Forsterian/Jamesian tradition, if such a tradition can exist.

You know what I'm talking about. Novels about the lives of interesting people just a shade more fascinating and a shade better looking than average, whose lives fall in the midst of some greater sociopolitical moment. What's surprising is how that incredible novel came out of the writer who produced this small one.

It's not a bad book by any stretch. It tells the story of Alex, who is invited up (out? Westward?) to Dorset by his ex-boyfriend Justin, to spend the weekend at his (Justin's) and his boyfriend, Robin's, cabin. While there he meets Robin's son Danny, who—because this is an early Hollinghurst novel and, thus, every man held within its chapters must be if not gay in full than at least game for some gay sex—is also gay and eventually falls for Alex. So you've got a nicely complex love quadrangle here, and what makes this novel work is that Hollinghurst moves among each man's close-third POV, so that as the novel progresses all four of them become more complicated and interesting.

But that's all they are is complicated and interesting. It's a perfectly competent novel, but I think just a little too small in scope for my tastes. And for Hollinghurst's; he's always better when he's got something larger to anchor his narrative to. In you can constantly read Hollinghurst trying to get a handle on, and in doing so he does a great job of connecting the newer, post-lib gay scene with the older pre-war closeted one. Line of Beauty would be nothing without the specter (and eventual manifestation) of Margaret Thatcher haunting its pages.

Like take a look at this passage from that book: 'Thatcher: came in to the house of one of the central characters, a conservative MP who's been courting her as a guest for the whole novel: at her gracious scuttle, with its hint of a long-suppressed embarrassment, of clumsiness transmuted into power. She looked ahead, into the unknown house, and everything she saw was a confirmation. The high hall mirror welcomed her, and in it the faces of the welcomers, some of whom, grand though they were, had a look beyond pride, a kind of rapture, that was bold and shy at once. She seemed pleased by the attention, and countered it cheerfully and practically, like modern royalty. She gave no sign of noting the colour of the front door' (328).

Maybe the like majesty of it is lost in excerpting, but my grand point here is that if Hollinghurst were a major league batter I'd accuse him of discovering steroids between 1998 and whenever Line of Beauty was written. It's just on a whole other scale, and seeing as how that latest novel owes as much of itself to Henry James as it does M. Thatcher, I may imagine Hollinghurst's 'juice' was the master himself.

This book was so unpleasant I finished it in two days. I'd read a chapter, make a face, put the book down, and walk away. Later I'd find myself reading it again.

Spell Alan In French

It's a terrible book filled with gay men who are all cheating on each other. The really annoying thing is that it's quite well written so I kept reading even though I didn't want to. I wanted to see how it turned out, but I didn't care about any of the characters because they obviously didn't care about each other. So that was Fiction.

This book was so unpleasant I finished it in two days. I'd read a chapter, make a face, put the book down, and walk away. Later I'd find myself reading it again. It's a terrible book filled with gay men who are all cheating on each other. The really annoying thing is that it's quite well written so I kept reading even though I didn't want to. I wanted to see how it turned out, but I didn't care about any of the characters because they obviously didn't care about each other.

So that was depressing. Read this if you're looking for a well-written book filled with selfish, unlikeable people. 'Ultimately, The Spell details the restlessness of every human heart,' informs the Goodreads blurb. No, that is exactly wrong. What it details is the restlessness of the gay penis. The novel is about a group of gay men in 1990s Britain, ranging in age from late teens to mid-forties, who desperately try to determine the size and shape of other men's cock-and-balls in whatever pants or underwear begarbs them.

As such, the novel was about 70% too gay for me. It was like a dish that had two ingredien 'Ultimately, The Spell details the restlessness of every human heart,' informs the Goodreads blurb. No, that is exactly wrong. What it details is the restlessness of the gay penis.

The novel is about a group of gay men in 1990s Britain, ranging in age from late teens to mid-forties, who desperately try to determine the size and shape of other men's cock-and-balls in whatever pants or underwear begarbs them. As such, the novel was about 70% too gay for me. It was like a dish that had two ingredients but needed five. Maybe the three lacking ingredients could have been plot, one or two heterosexual characters, and a nice murder or something. There were a couple heteros, but they were undeveloped, like stick figures. There was a nice plot point late in the novel where one of the gay protagonists, viewing a house on the market, picks up his real estate agent's wallet in order to see if he has any photos of a wife or male lover.

When the agent comes back in the room, he guiltily pockets the wallet and then has no opportunity to return it without looking like a smarmy idiot. This could have gone somewhere interesting, but Hollinghurst just dropped it and our man Justin went back to cock-and-ball inspecting. Hollinghurst is a talented writer (this was his third novel), but The Spell just feels like a big wad of self-indulgence. No amount of description of cow-parsley in the fields can compensate for such a thin plot. Hollinghurst's prose is as frank and lush as ever in The Spell. He reveals his characters' intricate internal worlds; to the reader's benefit, they are wonderfully observant and self-aware, yet they do not communicate well with one another.

They withhold information; they hesitate to reveal themselves. It's not unexplored territory, but Hollinghurst deals brilliantly with characters' emotional and psychological lives. I'm left wondering if they're all happy with who and what they end up with, or Hollinghurst's prose is as frank and lush as ever in The Spell. He reveals his characters' intricate internal worlds; to the reader's benefit, they are wonderfully observant and self-aware, yet they do not communicate well with one another.

They withhold information; they hesitate to reveal themselves. It's not unexplored territory, but Hollinghurst deals brilliantly with characters' emotional and psychological lives. I'm left wondering if they're all happy with who and what they end up with, or are they making the best of their situations. I find these to be satisfying questions. In some ways, they seem familiar, and I find myself and people I know in these characters. What frustrates me is that their world is so white and (upper) middle class. Non-white characters are rarely mentioned, and when they are, they arouse suspicion in some of the main characters.

Also, the main characters don't worry about money (except, perhaps, while waiting for one's inheritance to come through). At times, the homogeneity gets a little distracting.

Wow, this book is bad. Nearly all the characters are hollow, superficial, empty. That doesn't make it easy to like them or even care about them (but maybe that's intentional. What do I know?). Wasn't anything special either, but this one is terrible. I was tempted to give two stars but that would be too harsh. In the end, it's just a gay variation of chick lit.

No artistic value expected/required. Read it if you need to turn off your brain but stay occu Wow, this book is bad. Nearly all the characters are hollow, superficial, empty. That doesn't make it easy to like them or even care about them (but maybe that's intentional. What do I know?). Wasn't anything special either, but this one is terrible.

I was tempted to give two stars but that would be too harsh. In the end, it's just a gay variation of chick lit. No artistic value expected/required. Read it if you need to turn off your brain but stay occupied with something without a lasting impression, typically on plain or on holiday. It's the kind of book you can lose, not finish, or misplace, and not even care. I was warned about this, so can I really complain?

It's just not good. I can see what it tries to, but the skills weren't there yet. I hear that his later work is much better and I am looking forward to reading that.

It's a strange glimpse into the upper middle class English country-side with a few trips into London night clubs. All the characters are gay men and it's about their interweaving relationships. At first that was actually entertaining to a degree, but as the story progressed everybody I was warned about this, so can I really complain? It's just not good. I can see what it tries to, but the skills weren't there yet. I hear that his later work is much better and I am looking forward to reading that.

It's a strange glimpse into the upper middle class English country-side with a few trips into London night clubs. All the characters are gay men and it's about their interweaving relationships. At first that was actually entertaining to a degree, but as the story progressed everybody just became less and less likable, and pointless.

So in the end, I hated everybody and their entire world. I don't know if that was the point, but I felt like all the emotions stayed on the surface, and nothing deeper happened at all - and when it did, the writer chose those moments to gloss over and cut out in favor of another banal conversation.

And I am a fan of the British vernacular, but it's very difficult to take a conversation seriously and have genuine feelings about something with the amount of 'dear, oh dear' and 'darling' and 'jolly good'. It just makes a wooden stretch of dialogue that much worse when every second one has a 'darling' attached to it. This book was difficult to like - both for the writing style and the content.

The wandering prose was no doubt meant to be artful and evocative but all it achieved a sense of confusion. Scene changes and points in time were difficult to discern, which made the story hard to follow. Speaking of story - there wasn't much of it, though I suppose this is a slice-of-life style novel. The scenes and characters are recognisable from real life: groups of gay men who will only befriend good looking peopl This book was difficult to like - both for the writing style and the content. The wandering prose was no doubt meant to be artful and evocative but all it achieved a sense of confusion.

Scene changes and points in time were difficult to discern, which made the story hard to follow. Speaking of story - there wasn't much of it, though I suppose this is a slice-of-life style novel. The scenes and characters are recognisable from real life: groups of gay men who will only befriend good looking people, take drugs and party, but everything dramatised for effect - which makes the story hard to empathise with. The author's subject matter seems to be same all the time: intergenerational relationships, wealthy men etc., and I feel after you've read one of his books there's no need to pick up another. I realise this book was published in 1999, but it has a rather dated approach to non-white characters. You have the black friend, the Arabic friend, etc.

Slotted into the narrative as if to say, see, not everyone's white.but it all ends up feeling very tokenised. Beautifully written story by Hollinghurst describes the loves and betrayals of 3 gay men. How each cope and their feelings toward each other as they meet on a weekend. Two are ex-lovers and we find a contrived weekend merely to compare loves. It's cruel and Justin is cruel. Robbin is hot. Alex is dumped and lonely.

Hollinghurst manages to illicit emotions and feelings from the smallest things in life and encapsulate them and uses them to describe how a little stream, dust motes in the air all of Beautifully written story by Hollinghurst describes the loves and betrayals of 3 gay men. How each cope and their feelings toward each other as they meet on a weekend. Two are ex-lovers and we find a contrived weekend merely to compare loves. It's cruel and Justin is cruel. Robbin is hot. Alex is dumped and lonely. Hollinghurst manages to illicit emotions and feelings from the smallest things in life and encapsulate them and uses them to describe how a little stream, dust motes in the air all of these wreak havoc with Alex, a man who has had his heart broken.

He tries to move forward but doesn't have the fortitude. Then he meets Danny a 21 year old. They fall madly in love.

Tender, touching story of journey of the unsure older man and the a younger man in love, lust and life. Found the book captivating and full of pathos, hate, love and misunderstanding. All the things that I love in a gay love story. The loves and lives of gays seems to me to be beautiful and cruel at the same time.especially in The Spell. Every morning when Alex woke he thought of Danny; his thoughts emerged from the watery interview or vanishing railway-carriage of dreams, stumbled on for a few forgetful instances, pale and directionless, and then fled towards Danny in a grateful glow of remembered purpose.

It was love, and all the day would be coloured by it. Or perhaps love was the primary thing, onto which the events of the day were transiently projected - that was how it seemed afterwards, when his memory gave back rather li Every morning when Alex woke he thought of Danny; his thoughts emerged from the watery interview or vanishing railway-carriage of dreams, stumbled on for a few forgetful instances, pale and directionless, and then fled towards Danny in a grateful glow of remembered purpose. It was love, and all the day would be coloured by it. Or perhaps love was the primary thing, onto which the events of the day were transiently projected - that was how it seemed afterwards, when his memory gave back rather little from these months.

Alex could never picture Danny as a whole - he was an effect of light, a cocky way of walking, a smooth inner thigh, a lithe sweaty weight, a secretive chuckle, a mouth drawn back before orgasm as though he was about to be sick. Alex woke up, thought of Danny, and on these lucky days felt his breath on his neck, or the curve of his hip under his hand. Alan Holinghurst, The Spell (London: Vintage, 1999), 162-3. This was another book I had abandoned out of sheer boredom. This time I finished the book, but the book was like eating oatmeal. Nothing wrong with oatmeal, it's hot and nourishing, but not exciting.

The characters were unappealing and unlikeable. In truth, they were worse than oatmeal. On the whole the writing seemed accomplished but too many passages tried too hard. The effort in the writing translated into effort in reading. There seemed to be no joy in the act of writing.

I confess the extre This was another book I had abandoned out of sheer boredom. This time I finished the book, but the book was like eating oatmeal. Nothing wrong with oatmeal, it's hot and nourishing, but not exciting. The characters were unappealing and unlikeable. In truth, they were worse than oatmeal. On the whole the writing seemed accomplished but too many passages tried too hard.

The effort in the writing translated into effort in reading. There seemed to be no joy in the act of writing. I confess the extremely 'British' prose also got in the way. Saying that a quilt is the color of Germolene, a pain cream I actually know of from my UK travels, is a bit much. I understand that this is one of Hollinghurst's earlier works.

I still might sample a more recent novel. But at least I rescued another book marker from being trapped between unread pages. Alright, so the ending scene was a little silly and, as a whole, this book doesn't come close to the dizzying literary heights of The Line of Beauty. It is, however, a wonderful read.

I love the way Hollinghurst evokes character and place and community, I love the awkward terrible sad sweet workings of the relationships he portrays, I love being dropped into a world in which nearly everyone is gay. (That 1 star review up there really bugs me - I can't understand why anyone looking for a fast pac Alright, so the ending scene was a little silly and, as a whole, this book doesn't come close to the dizzying literary heights of The Line of Beauty. It is, however, a wonderful read. I love the way Hollinghurst evokes character and place and community, I love the awkward terrible sad sweet workings of the relationships he portrays, I love being dropped into a world in which nearly everyone is gay. (That 1 star review up there really bugs me - I can't understand why anyone looking for a fast paced plot would have picked up a novel by this author in the first place, and I am endlessly bothered by readers who need all characters to be - shudder - likeable.

If that's you, don't read this book. If not, enjoy.).

Simply put, this novel is about four gay men and their relationships that are always in a state of falling apart or coming together. The prose is beautiful, and the main reason I picked up The Spell. Having never read Hollinghurst, I was excited to delve into one of his works and see what all the hype was about. Evidently, I picked the wrong novel. The characters are not just unlikable (which I could handle), they're entirely two-dimensional, propelled by the most basic of desires. There's no Simply put, this novel is about four gay men and their relationships that are always in a state of falling apart or coming together.

The prose is beautiful, and the main reason I picked up The Spell. Having never read Hollinghurst, I was excited to delve into one of his works and see what all the hype was about. Evidently, I picked the wrong novel. The characters are not just unlikable (which I could handle), they're entirely two-dimensional, propelled by the most basic of desires. There's no motivation, no real struggle, no chance for any kind of development.

It's all just a merry go round of who's sleeping with who and uneventful weekends in the British countryside. It was hard to find anything to really like or dislike in this novel, as everything felt tepid and bland. The only thing that really stuck out to me as negative was the opening chapter.

Why is Robin the only character to get a background chapter set years before the rest of the story? It didn't contribute anything save for setting up his flippant, unattached, attitude that everyone save for Alex shares.

The Spell is a good novel if you want to zone out and read something pretty. Other than that, it has no story to speak of and the characters are pointless.

Published by Penguin (May 1, 2000), The Spell by Alan Hollinghurst marked Mr. Hollinghurst as perhaps the eminent classical Gay stylist (writer) since E.M Forester. Booker prize winning author (The Line of Beauty) Alan Hollinghurst’s The Spell is an earlier, and more relaxed book than Beauty. Here Hollinghurst has a really fine sense of gay life in England in the late 1990′s. His protagonists are 4 gay men.

Alex the sensitive of the group is a bit over 40 and has just lost his younger lover, Justi Published by Penguin (May 1, 2000), The Spell by Alan Hollinghurst marked Mr. Hollinghurst as perhaps the eminent classical Gay stylist (writer) since E.M Forester. Booker prize winning author (The Line of Beauty) Alan Hollinghurst’s The Spell is an earlier, and more relaxed book than Beauty. Here Hollinghurst has a really fine sense of gay life in England in the late 1990′s. His protagonists are 4 gay men.

Alex the sensitive of the group is a bit over 40 and has just lost his younger lover, Justin, to Robin a man about his own age who lives in the English country side. Much of the book takes place in this country side area, as Alex goes to visit his lost lover. Which is a very odd state of things as Alex and Robin are rather opposed to the idea of each other and never seem to see eye to eye. Yet, Alex who appears to be a perennial romantic (wears his heart on the sleeve) is curious about Justin’s new life and Hollinghurst admits the same of Justin, in that he, Justin is unsure if he made a ‘wrong’ choice in leaving Alex. Robin is described as an attractive man sure in his ways but experiencing a mid-life crisis.

He and Justin find the days hard going. Robin’s son Danny is the catalyst for them all, younger and very attractive, he takes a strong interest in Alex and they both become lovers. Robin is silently opposed to his young attractive gay son with Alex, but this never actually comes out in the novel as a fact, as Hollinghurst chooses that ‘Brit’ Stoicism to mirror these characters internally not demonstratively. The writing here by Mr. Hollinghurst is very distinct and bright. We actually see a gay world here, where the participants, gay men are just under the surface of the other (straight) lives that perculate about them.

Close to the end of the book where Alex and Danny are at the beach we do hear through Mr. Hollinghurst the odd sense of those ‘Others’, the constant opposable force of ‘typical humanity’ as it trudges about, making babies and living a blind existence.

The real wonder of the book though is that I was surprised that it is set in the 90′s in fact Hollinghurst is such a good writer that these men could have been from 1920′s, so firm does he know these men and their ways and lives. One gets a sense of the difficulty of life to gay men, a subject that can not be easily explained to an angry society that covets the usual and not the unique.

Clearly the edges of freedom are not what they seem to a majority who really don’t even know their own identity luckily gay men are just beneath that surface to give a larger meaning and breadth to the fabric we know as life. Hollinghurst is one of us, thank goodness, and it’s a wonder that we are privy to his great talents!

The Spell is perhaps the best and first book that one should read of Mr. Indeed in a hundred or so years we may just see a Hollinghurst Bust amongst Wilde, Capote and Maugham. Given my fondness for The Line of Beauty and Hollinghurst's vivid-yet-succinct prose, I figured I might as well try this (more outrightly gay) novel.

The jacket cover certainly didn't usher me into the pages ('a tab of ecstacy and a night of house music'? Ah!), but I began with a quiet ease. As a gay male myself, I was all about reading a book that tried to qualitatively describe the more-than-sometime isolation of the modern gay man. Rather than offering any insights in regards to why these cha Given my fondness for The Line of Beauty and Hollinghurst's vivid-yet-succinct prose, I figured I might as well try this (more outrightly gay) novel. The jacket cover certainly didn't usher me into the pages ('a tab of ecstacy and a night of house music'?

Ah!), but I began with a quiet ease. As a gay male myself, I was all about reading a book that tried to qualitatively describe the more-than-sometime isolation of the modern gay man. Rather than offering any insights in regards to why these characters acted in particular ways (incessant, promiscuous sexual binges, clinging to the least bit of intimacy, etc.), the novel seemed to profile a number of different gay stereotypes and finding vague connections between said stereotypes. The title, The Spell, seemed promising and so I continued to read.

Why do these characters carry on? What propels them? If we take it as fact that gay relationships are different than those between heterosexual individuals, why might that be? While I might have been looking for a bit more substance in the work than promised (after all, there is a degree of voyeurisitc superficiality one might crave upon reading the book's description), I was hoping that this could have been a moment (or moments) of personal and social dissection. What struck me most was in the complete transience of feelings and experiences had by each of the main characters. Perhaps that was the point of the work, that these people are seemingly transient (and might continue to be, at LEAST viewed this way until society is even more accepting of homosexuality as a concept and identity).

It struck me that these characters seemed to only experience feelings of pity (particularly Danny in relation to Alex), entitlement, or complete estrangement. We can take some of these characters out of the periphery if we start to see their feelings as multi-dimensional and see these characters in a wider variety of contexts (surely there must be some interest in determining exactly WHY gay men tend to associate themselves largely or exclusively with other gay men. While the dialogue was sharp and intriguing (to a point) and the prose served the reader most during some of the chaotic moments of gluttony (drug use, meaningless drivel), I was hoping for a bit more.though Alan Hollinghurst, I'm still a big fan. I confess that I am partial to Alan Hollinghurst’s gorgeous prose, so much so that I sometimes pay scant attention to the stories he is trying to tell, which incidentally feel conspicuously similar (at least this one feels similar to both The Swimmingpool Library and The Line of Beauty).

I deeply admire his writing – more than perhaps any other writer – but I merely like the content of his stories. I haven’t yet read a story by him where I really liked a character, possibly apart from Alex in th I confess that I am partial to Alan Hollinghurst’s gorgeous prose, so much so that I sometimes pay scant attention to the stories he is trying to tell, which incidentally feel conspicuously similar (at least this one feels similar to both The Swimmingpool Library and The Line of Beauty).

I deeply admire his writing – more than perhaps any other writer – but I merely like the content of his stories. I haven’t yet read a story by him where I really liked a character, possibly apart from Alex in this one, but of course that’s neither here nor there; a story may still be interesting and tell us certain truths. The truths Hollinghurst seems to be telling us in this novel, have to do with human relationships, mostly romantic ones, and only homosexual male relationships.

I therefore cannot relate to the specifics of the relationships, but when I still keep going back to his stories it is of course because these relationships tell us about human relationships in general, our hopes and disappointments when it comes to ourselves and other people, and he seems to have a deep, well-developed insight into many different types of human beings or at least men, which I find extremely interesting. In this novel, there is plenty of disappointment (hence the title), notably because one of the main characters is a pleasure seeker who doesn’t much care for responsibilities in relationships, whereas one of the other main characters is all about quiet responsibility and decency. They clash, inevitably. In The Spell, Hollinghurst also touches on city vs.

Country living, again a bit of architecture, and there are also quite a lot of drinks involved, and drugs. Had I read only that description before embarking on this novel, I probably would have steered clear of the book altogether, and yet I’m basically prepared to read anything Alan Hollinghurst writes.

I have enjoyed this book as much as I have Hollinghurst's other works I have read. What I enjoy is the man's use of the language I really find it spellbinding. The turn of phrase, the descriptive passages laying out a scene, sketching in the character of people, or simply revelling in nature. It could be over woked at someone else's hands but for me he has the gift. I find I have little sympathy in the tragi comic meanderings of the gay characters in his story. I feel for Alex but there seems to I have enjoyed this book as much as I have Hollinghurst's other works I have read.

What I enjoy is the man's use of the language I really find it spellbinding. The turn of phrase, the descriptive passages laying out a scene, sketching in the character of people, or simply revelling in nature. It could be over woked at someone else's hands but for me he has the gift. I find I have little sympathy in the tragi comic meanderings of the gay characters in his story.

I feel for Alex but there seems to be such a shallow approach to life and others, that part of the 'scene' that so repulsed me when I lived in Darlinghurst, Sydney's gay part of town. There is a kind of predatory edge to a lot of these people that bespeaks an emptiness, nothing constant in their emotional or moral firmament ( and I don't mean that in a prudish way). These men just seem to spill into each other for a moment's gratification and that's that. As though the finer feelings a person might have about themselves in relation to others has simply been lost in the lust.

I have been on the fringes of that way of living but it has never offered me anything. The description of Alex's first experience with ecstasy has the ring about it, that's for sure. MDMA has many redeeming features if it could be used as a part of therapy for the troubled.

It certainly helped to open up my heart and mind at a time of great pain, a beginning of the shining light in a way. I enjoyed this book, centred around 4 men. The narrative switches to each of their points of view, so that you gain insight into each of the characters.

Robin is the first character we meet, he's a student in the Arizona Desert, who is clearly gay but has a girlfriend at home in England who announces she is pregnant during a long distance call. Fast forward some years. Justin is the callous, promiscuous youth that Robin falls in love with. He drinks, he's funny, and he's about as selfish as you I enjoyed this book, centred around 4 men.

The narrative switches to each of their points of view, so that you gain insight into each of the characters. Robin is the first character we meet, he's a student in the Arizona Desert, who is clearly gay but has a girlfriend at home in England who announces she is pregnant during a long distance call. Fast forward some years. Justin is the callous, promiscuous youth that Robin falls in love with. He drinks, he's funny, and he's about as selfish as you can get. He's already broken Alex's heart, and we meet tall, nice, awkward Alex one weekend when Justin invites him to meet his new lover, Robin, in the heart of the Dorset countryside.

Finally, there's Danny, who is the son Robin learned of years ago in Arizona. He's also gay, and can only be defined by his sexual experiences. He is not interested in love or attachments.

There's a panorama of delightful characters and some very funny observations. It's poignant, too, especially in the sensitive depiction of poor Alex, who falls in love too easily. The novel seems to imply that the younger generation of gay men don't hold with love much. It's very much a hard party/ drugs/ sex scene, frenetic and more suited to youth. The older gays seem happier to embrace deeper relationships. An observant, funny and insightful book. Alan Hollinghurst is an English novelist, and winner of the 2004 Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.

He read English at Magdalen College, Oxford graduating in 1975; and subsequently took the further degree of Master of Literature (1979). While at Oxford he shared a house with Andrew Motion, and was awarded the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1974, the year before Motion. In the late 1970s he became a Alan Hollinghurst is an English novelist, and winner of the 2004 Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty. He read English at Magdalen College, Oxford graduating in 1975; and subsequently took the further degree of Master of Literature (1979). While at Oxford he shared a house with Andrew Motion, and was awarded the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1974, the year before Motion. In the late 1970s he became a lecturer at Magdalen, and then at Somerville College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

In 1981 he moved on to lecture at University College London. In 1997, he went on an Asia book tour in Singapore. In 1981 he joined The Times Literary Supplement and was the paper's deputy editor from 1982 to 1995. He lives in London.