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Review
'Hollinghurst's follow-up to The Line of Beauty, his 2004 Man Booker-Prize winner, is still several months away, but advance word suggests another classic. Following the lives of two families from the eve of WW1 to the close of the 20th century, it promises to be hugely ambitious, deeply affecting and beautifully written. If it's not, we'll eat your copy.' --GQ
'An epic story of two families and two houses spanning the entire 20th century, it promises to enhance its author's claim to the title of best British novelist working at the moment.' --Observer News Review 2011 Preview
'I'm particularly looking forward to the first novel in seven years from Alan Hollinghurst, and the word on the street is that it's every bit as compelling as The Line of Beauty' --Mariella Frostrup, `Stylist' (her number One choice for `2011's Essential Reading')
'Hollinghurst is promising a huge novel for the summer, a tale of two families that ranges from 1913 to the late Noughties.' --Sunday Times 2011 Preview
'I'll definitely be taking Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child, which spans several generations, no doubt in his usual impeccable prose' James Walton
'I'll be packing a copy of Alan Hollinghurst s The Stranger s Child. That's partly because he s the finest prose stylist of his generation, but also because his writing sits so invitingly between the intellectually risky and the sexually risqué' Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
'I loved The Line of Beauty and The Swimming-Pool Library so I am very much looking forward to Alan Hollinghurst s The Stranger's Child, which promises to match his earlier books in both elegance of prose and acuity of psychological insight' Michael Gove --Daily Telegraph's Summer Reading
An intricate, witty, playful meditation on what is now beginning to emerge as one of Hollinghurst s chief concerns: Englishness. Comedy of manners, investigation of class, changing political and social landscape all the reliable pleasures that his fiction offers are here in their dense, detailed richness.... Miraculously handled Hollinghurst set-pieces... It is woven with stupendous deftness, its internal assonances making a complex, comprehensive harmony... A magnificent coherence The Times
Masterful... There is a huge cleverness to the book at a structural and, as it were, managerial level. Characters are named with an aptness which is light-footed and unswervingly accurate... Hollinghurst, as ever, is quietly brilliant about architecture, both in the specific sense of a cultural discourse about buildings, and the broader sense of how people behave in different kinds of place... there is something symphonic about [the novel s] wholeness. There is also something filmic in the book s enveloping embrace; not the heritage cinema of Merchant Ivory et al, but the more experimental, argumentative efforts of the Sixties and Seventies. I often found myself recalling Joseph Losey's version of The Go-Between, and occasionally the anguished exquisites of Michelangelo Antonioni... there s also a lot that is purely and simply very funny Daily Telegraph 4-star review
A showcase for bravura writing. Such praise could be off-putting: the glitter of fine writing often elevates style over substance. Perhaps I should therefore stress straight away that The Stranger s Child is not only written with extraordinary beauty, but is also exceptionally readable and this even though the narrative is fragmented by chronological leaps, the characterisation disrupted by shifts in perspective. The author s imagination is teased by the extent to which we are strangers to each other, and the way in which the past becomes strange to the present. His genius lies in his ability to intrigue the reader, too, suggesting the hinterland of a secret, vivid life, glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, as it were. Hollinghurst is superbly skilled at heightening awareness of the liminal Standpoint magazine
A rollicking ride with biting wit and observant prose. Bring it on --Country & Town House magazine
'An epic story of two families and two houses spanning the entire 20th century, it promises to enhance its author's claim to the title of best British novelist working at the moment.' --Observer News Review 2011 Preview
'I'm particularly looking forward to the first novel in seven years from Alan Hollinghurst, and the word on the street is that it's every bit as compelling as The Line of Beauty' --Mariella Frostrup, `Stylist' (her number One choice for `2011's Essential Reading')
'Hollinghurst is promising a huge novel for the summer, a tale of two families that ranges from 1913 to the late Noughties.' --Sunday Times 2011 Preview
'I'll definitely be taking Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child, which spans several generations, no doubt in his usual impeccable prose' James Walton
'I'll be packing a copy of Alan Hollinghurst s The Stranger s Child. That's partly because he s the finest prose stylist of his generation, but also because his writing sits so invitingly between the intellectually risky and the sexually risqué' Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
'I loved The Line of Beauty and The Swimming-Pool Library so I am very much looking forward to Alan Hollinghurst s The Stranger's Child, which promises to match his earlier books in both elegance of prose and acuity of psychological insight' Michael Gove --Daily Telegraph's Summer Reading
An intricate, witty, playful meditation on what is now beginning to emerge as one of Hollinghurst s chief concerns: Englishness. Comedy of manners, investigation of class, changing political and social landscape all the reliable pleasures that his fiction offers are here in their dense, detailed richness.... Miraculously handled Hollinghurst set-pieces... It is woven with stupendous deftness, its internal assonances making a complex, comprehensive harmony... A magnificent coherence The Times
Masterful... There is a huge cleverness to the book at a structural and, as it were, managerial level. Characters are named with an aptness which is light-footed and unswervingly accurate... Hollinghurst, as ever, is quietly brilliant about architecture, both in the specific sense of a cultural discourse about buildings, and the broader sense of how people behave in different kinds of place... there is something symphonic about [the novel s] wholeness. There is also something filmic in the book s enveloping embrace; not the heritage cinema of Merchant Ivory et al, but the more experimental, argumentative efforts of the Sixties and Seventies. I often found myself recalling Joseph Losey's version of The Go-Between, and occasionally the anguished exquisites of Michelangelo Antonioni... there s also a lot that is purely and simply very funny Daily Telegraph 4-star review
A showcase for bravura writing. Such praise could be off-putting: the glitter of fine writing often elevates style over substance. Perhaps I should therefore stress straight away that The Stranger s Child is not only written with extraordinary beauty, but is also exceptionally readable and this even though the narrative is fragmented by chronological leaps, the characterisation disrupted by shifts in perspective. The author s imagination is teased by the extent to which we are strangers to each other, and the way in which the past becomes strange to the present. His genius lies in his ability to intrigue the reader, too, suggesting the hinterland of a secret, vivid life, glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, as it were. Hollinghurst is superbly skilled at heightening awareness of the liminal Standpoint magazine
A rollicking ride with biting wit and observant prose. Bring it on --Country & Town House magazine
Product Description
Alan Hollinghurst's first novel since The Line of Beauty, winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Forster's Epigone?,
By
This review is from: The Stranger's Child (Hardcover)
Hollinghurst often reminds me of E.M.Forster with his nostalgia for the early C20 and his focus on the minute details of people's thoughts, observations of one another and interrelationships, all presented in well-crafted prose (apart from the odd clunky phrase like "she said carryingly").Charismatic, arrogant and manipulative, the aristocratic Cecil Valance achieves a possibly undeserved popularity as a poet after his early death in the First World War. Can the truth of his life ever be told by biographers? This seems unlikely since even those who claim to know him have very different perceptions. In five separate sections separated by gaps of several years or even decades, the author aims to show the false nature of memory. You could argue that Hollinghurst is daring in discarding many of the "conventions" of novel-writing. The development of a strong plot is given second place to what often reads like a series of short stories: portrayals of characters who make only brief appearances, or the description of quite minor incidents, evocative of past generations, but very amusing, ludicrous or in the style of a black comedy. The author tends to build up anticipation of a certain outcome, only for it not to occur, insofar as one can judge! Significant events are frequently no more than implied. Although this book promises much, my growing suspicion that it would not deliver proved justified. It suffers from being too long, repetitive in its limited revelations and self-indulgent, not least in its campness - I grew tired of "blushing" and "giggling" men of all ages. It does not bother me that most of the characters are very middle class , but there are certainly too many of them to relate to easily, and I was left feeling I had waded through an Oxford don's overblown soap opera fantasy. I know that "the stranger's child" is a quotation from Tennyson's "In Memoriam" read aloud by Cecil in Part 1, and thanks to Roderick Blythe for explaining to me in the comment below its meaning in the title.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
disappointing,
This review is from: The Stranger's Child (Hardcover)
This is Hollinghurst's worst novel by far. It is very carefully structured and planned. The prose style is clear and sound. But the characters ! Who cares tuppence about any of them ? I understand that it has been likened to MIDDLEMARCH. What a joke ! That novel is teeming with fully developed and developing characters, set in a society which almost breathes in your face. This book is so superficial visavis characters. It spans decades so there is no rooted sense of time and place - just a realisation of the changing attitudes towards homosexuality. It feels as though Hollinghurst has given himself a task to show that he can write a book like Ian MacEwan's Atonement and perhaps he feels, smugly, that he has done so. But there is no comparison. No interesting characters, no sense of time and place, just a well-constructed cerebral indulgence. I am so disappointed as I loved his other books, especially The Line of Beauty. I think this book has so many apparent admirers because of Hollinghurst's reputation. I reckon the Mann-Booker judges were right !
37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Emotionally dull!,
By
This review is from: The Stranger's Child (Hardcover)
Where do I start with reviewing probably the favourite for the Booker prize 2011? Critics, reviewers and readers have all been waiting (so we are told) with baited breath for Hollinghurst to send forth his first novel since the Booker prize winning novel of 2004 The Line of Beauty. So...... does it deserve the critics praise which it has certainly been given since publication or is this a case of no one wanting to look ignorant or stand out and say actually it's not that great!The book is broken down into five sections. In the first we meet the man whose legacy will impact upon the rest of the novel. Cecil Valance is a poet who if he'd lived long enough would have disappeared into probable obscurity, however his early death creates a legend whose name is forever to be linked with Rupert Brooke and a generation of young men who died in the First World War. We see Valance through the eyes of his young lover George Sawles and more importantly George's younger sister Daphne who creates the link with Cecil and the remainder of the novel. Whilst visiting their family home Two Acres, Valance writes a poem which will ensure his fame and notoriety. Churchill will go on to quote it and questions will be raised as to who the poem was meant for (is it George or Daphne who is at the heart of the verse). The remaining four sections deals with the subsequent generations of the Valance/Sawles and how their lives have altered throughout the course of the 20th century but are still linked to a long dead poet. The critics have said that with this novel Hollinghurst has addressed issues surrounding the lack of emotional depth to his characters and there is a beauty and fragility to his writing. I've got to admit that I found his characters shallow, uninteresting and pastiches of other characters in literature. The idea that this is a nostalgic novel which deals primarily with remembrance of the past and its ideas (especially literary memory) just doesn't work for me. Hollinghurst has produced a stereotypical view upper/middle class England which for me has no sense of reality or truth to it (in fact I often felt I was reading an Agatha Christie novel but at least with Christie you get a plot and of course a murder!). You get no real emotional attachment to any of the characters, they have no body or life in them, and I find it implausible the notion that over passing decades Valance's work would have been decried by successive academics/critics (seeing that the plot works on the notion of him to have been a mediocre writer). Hollinghurst seems wrapped up in the idea that people are obsessed with the notion of sexuality and even at the end of the novel which is set in 2008 that one really cares as to whether or not Valance was gay. I've got to admit at this point I just wanted it to end. So maybe I am ignorant, maybe I am not capable of seeing the multilayered plot and the literary references which run throughout this novel. But I do know when I love something and I certainly didn't love this novel at all.
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