yourfriendandneighbor

I also read his two other novels, 'The Spell', and 'The Folding Star' - which makes 'The Line of Beauty' his fourth, not his fifth, work. I think it would be safe to say that he is trying to make emotional frivolity in general look injurious to the soul, not just homosexualism. Take a look at the relationships of the straight characters in his novels - they ain't exactly happy either.

FeveredJoy

I too, loved The Swimming Pool Library, but if I was reccomending Hollinghurst to anyone I'd tell them to go straight for Line of beauty. Equally sombre, it's a story told in such rich prose it's like written velvet.

discoagogo

Put that book together with _The Line of Beauty_ (I dare anyone to prove they finished it) and, further, you have no choice but to assume that what is occasionally written about Hollinghurst is true: The only guys he really likes are circumcised and black. Every other combination he writes about with an undertone of depravity.

It is somewhat facile of him to do so, since it's the sort of thing squeamish heterosexualists do-- viewing covert homosexuality (particularly in the historical period he treats in _The Line of Beauty_) and gay sexual practices as essentially sordid. This is a writer who can spend an entire paragraph parsing out the microthoughts contained within a single uttered sentence. Surely he can be a bit more subtle.

Joe Clark

clandestino

clandestino

hudsons1

Spit