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Review
" 'As is typical of the best classics, he has fashioned a universal tale of sexual obsession, love and death out of a particular life' - Marie Claire. 'Even in its sexiest moments, it never loses its intellectual poise. Dry witticisms intersperse sweaty couplings... The Folding Star is a novel of considerable breadth. What gives it its depth is the candour, wit, sensuous immediacy and melancholy intelligence applied to it' - Peter Kemp, Times Literary Supplement. 'Few writers' prose can throw a party as easily as retire to the library as Hollinghurst's...[He] is on as fine a form in this novel as his first' - Tom Shone, Spectator. 'Grand 19th-century fin-de-siecle lusciousness, a seamy 20th-century carnality and a generous pinch of true wit' - Sunday Times"
Book Description
'An extraordinary book which takes the reader into a world of obsession and mystery...The Folding Star is lit by insight and humour' Evening Standard
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
46 of 51 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This one of those rare novels you have to read from beginning to end - an achievement in itself. You won't get the flavour of it by simply dipping into it, and you cannot claim to have read it unless you have read the whole thing. In fact, to be honest, I was suspicious about it for much of the time, even while I was enjoying it. True, the Flemish city in which it is set is beautifully evoked; there is a marvellous sense of desolation in the juxtaposition of an ancient medieval burgher town and a North Sea resort out of season - a perfect setting for the central tale of frustrated, self-absorbed, beached love; and the whole thing is always beautifully crafted and paced. But I did think the main character was superficial and needed nothing more than a good slap, and the Symbolism, which forms the sub-text, is so heavy-handed that it makes irony look ironic - the narrator's first love was named Dawn, for God's sake, and the object of his Flemish obsession is called Luc(ifer), the Morning, Evening, Falling, Folding Star - otherwise known as the planet Venus. However, very suddenly, towards the end, just when you think there might be a neat resolution, the surface begins to shatter and break up, the ground collapses beneath you and the selfish farce becomes a universal tragedy. The author leaves you with a startling image that reminded me, strangely, of Tarkovsky: Symbolism suddenly made profound. You realise that this is a novel, not only perfectly-formed, but powerful and profound. It was shortlisted, but it didn't win the Booker prize that year; there must have been an embarrassment of masterpieces. Strangely, I don't recall.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Edward Manners takes up his position as private tutor in English to a couple of boys in Flanders. One boy, Marcel, the son of an expert in the fictitious painter Orst, the other the enchantingly beautiful seventeen year oldLuc, son of a parents now separated. Manners, who is in his early thirties, tells of his time in the Flemish city, and along the way fills in much about his own background and friends, including his early sexual exploits with boys at school and on the common.
Marcel's father takes a close interest in Edward, and enlists him in his compilation of the catalogue of Orst's work, and much of the novel dwells on the artist, his life and his work. But we also follow Edward as he makes new friends, including Chrerif who becomes his lover, and the enigmatic and insular Matt with his interesting and inventive ways of making money.
Inevitably manners fall in love with Luc, becoming obsessed with the boy, and longs to seduce him, and as he learns more about Luc the chances of achieving his aim seem more and more likely.
The Folding Star is hauntingly beautiful story, as much due to the quality of the descriptive powers of the prose. If I have a complaint it is that Hollinghusrt is a little too intent on the creation of the artist Edgard Orst, with several long passages devoted to him. Yet the story is very involving, and regularly throws up new twists and revelations as it winds its way to its somewhat unresolved conclusion.
Marcel's father takes a close interest in Edward, and enlists him in his compilation of the catalogue of Orst's work, and much of the novel dwells on the artist, his life and his work. But we also follow Edward as he makes new friends, including Chrerif who becomes his lover, and the enigmatic and insular Matt with his interesting and inventive ways of making money.
Inevitably manners fall in love with Luc, becoming obsessed with the boy, and longs to seduce him, and as he learns more about Luc the chances of achieving his aim seem more and more likely.
The Folding Star is hauntingly beautiful story, as much due to the quality of the descriptive powers of the prose. If I have a complaint it is that Hollinghusrt is a little too intent on the creation of the artist Edgard Orst, with several long passages devoted to him. Yet the story is very involving, and regularly throws up new twists and revelations as it winds its way to its somewhat unresolved conclusion.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a long-term Belgian habitué I'd like to add another comment to the perceptive reviews of this superb novel, its profound sense of place. More than Hollinghurst's other novels, THE FOLDING STAR brilliantly evokes its locale, an anonymous Flemish city which is in fact an often uncanny amalgam of Brugge and Gent. It also evokes the strange multi-cultural aspects of the city and country, the distinctive quality of life in well-to-do Belgian homes and schools, and an almost eerie characterisation of Belgian teenage life.
More than any native novel which I know this book encapsulates the quality of lowland Belgium in the 1980s. It is far more than a 'gay' novel.
More than any native novel which I know this book encapsulates the quality of lowland Belgium in the 1980s. It is far more than a 'gay' novel.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Terrific sense of genius loci
It is difficult to add to the complimentary comments already made. I loved this book. The descriptions of the Flemish town and its people is so real, and the preoccupation with the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Reviewer Pete
A novel for a particular niche of readers
There are passages in "The Folding Star" which demonstrate that apt vocabulary and rich and informative expression come very easily to Alan Hollinghurst. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Skylark
Too much detail
It is difficult to fault Alan Hollinghurst in terms of his writing. His dialogue is authentic and often inspired. His sense of place and context are both excellent. But... Read more
Published 8 months ago by P. Burnard
Folding Star
Well written, but with an occasional tendency to describe in detail matters of little relevance. The author is not afraid to portray both good & bad aspects of the main charaters.
Published 10 months ago by pedro
slow start but hard to put down afterwards
At the start i found this book intensly dull and after a couple of chapters stopped reading it and read another book instead but then after i had finished that book i decided ro... Read more
Published on 22 May 2008 by FUTURESTARdelux
Keep looking!
After reading The Line of Beauty, I thought I'd read more by this author, and I did. This one is not his best by a long shot. Read more
Published on 10 Mar 2008 by Gerald T. Walford
I may just be nitpicking but....
"The Folding Star" appeared six years after Hollinghurt's first book "The Swimming Pool Library". It was shortlisted for the Booker prize (he later won it with "The Line of... Read more
Published on 29 Feb 2008 by Phil Shanklin
By far his best . . .
"The Folding Star" is undoubtedly Mr Hollinghurst's best work I have read (out of his three, since I have not as yet done "The Line of Beauty"). Read more
Published on 22 Jun 2005 by Angel (male)
The Folding Star
not much to say really. This book has captured me totaly, making me place an order for the author's other titles. Read more
Published on 28 Dec 2004 by Andrew Scarff
My favorite book of all times
An absolute masterpiece- Hollinghurst is the literary love child of Mann and Proust. I have read hundreds of books, and this is definitely my all-time favorite.
Published on 4 Jan 2001 by Coco Pazzo
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