The Stranger's Child
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £11.05
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Stranger's Child for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £11.05, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
'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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"'With The Stranger's Child, an already remarkable talent unfurls into something spectacular' Sunday Times 'I would compare the novel to Middlemarch... a remarkable, unmissable achievement' Independent 'Magnificent... universally acclaimed as the best novel of the year' Philip Hensher"
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
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.
40 of 46 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I read The Stranger's Child with some trepidation having not greatly enjoyed Line Of Beauty. I had pigeon holed Alan Hollinghurst as a pompous man who was obsessed by the class system, big houses, Oxbridge and gay sex. After reading the first part of The Stranger's Child, I was reassured to see that my prejudices were well founded. A book I could truly loathe.
But as the novel wore on, something quite subtle happened. It became more and more engrossing - the gradual layering of history; the changing perceptions over time. Cecil the dandy of Part One became a hero, and then a cult and finally a distant and second hand memory. His light burned brightly for a while, but he slipped back to the marginalia of literature.
Hollinghurst's technique is to report very few events in real time. He narrates through set piece parties, gatherings, weekends when conversation turns to past events. This can be frustrating at first (and I don't think it ever stopped being frustrating in Line of Beauty) but it is used to very good effect in The Stranger's Child - allowing different perspectives and allowing changes in perception or opinion over time. This was echoed in Cecil's most famous poem, Two Acres, and his letters - being controlled, edited and drip fed by those holding the documents to amend public perception of the man. By the end, the real Cecil was irrelevant - people each had their own personal agenda to pursue and the memory of the man was manipulated to those ends.
The writing, whilst well done, is not particularly flowery or pompous. The pomposity of the opening sections mellows and by the end, one is prepared to accept that it derives from the characters and situations rather than the author. And the characters do feel real; even the women (perhaps especially the women) feel real in contrast to the rather wooden women of Line of Beauty. There is a challenge each time the timeframe shifts in working out who is who and what has happened. It is not even immediately clear how far time has shifted - the reader is left to puzzle it all out. The first time this happened, as Part 1 moved into Part 2, it was disconcerting. By the end it was exhilarating. After Part 5, there was a pang of loss as there was no Part 6.
If there was one reservation with the novel, it is that it left the reason for the falling fortunes of the Valances unexplained. The reader is simply expected to take it as fact. But it wasn't a novel about the Valances as real people so much as a novel about reputations and relationships.
I hoped to hate the book - I'm glad to have loved it.
But as the novel wore on, something quite subtle happened. It became more and more engrossing - the gradual layering of history; the changing perceptions over time. Cecil the dandy of Part One became a hero, and then a cult and finally a distant and second hand memory. His light burned brightly for a while, but he slipped back to the marginalia of literature.
Hollinghurst's technique is to report very few events in real time. He narrates through set piece parties, gatherings, weekends when conversation turns to past events. This can be frustrating at first (and I don't think it ever stopped being frustrating in Line of Beauty) but it is used to very good effect in The Stranger's Child - allowing different perspectives and allowing changes in perception or opinion over time. This was echoed in Cecil's most famous poem, Two Acres, and his letters - being controlled, edited and drip fed by those holding the documents to amend public perception of the man. By the end, the real Cecil was irrelevant - people each had their own personal agenda to pursue and the memory of the man was manipulated to those ends.
The writing, whilst well done, is not particularly flowery or pompous. The pomposity of the opening sections mellows and by the end, one is prepared to accept that it derives from the characters and situations rather than the author. And the characters do feel real; even the women (perhaps especially the women) feel real in contrast to the rather wooden women of Line of Beauty. There is a challenge each time the timeframe shifts in working out who is who and what has happened. It is not even immediately clear how far time has shifted - the reader is left to puzzle it all out. The first time this happened, as Part 1 moved into Part 2, it was disconcerting. By the end it was exhilarating. After Part 5, there was a pang of loss as there was no Part 6.
If there was one reservation with the novel, it is that it left the reason for the falling fortunes of the Valances unexplained. The reader is simply expected to take it as fact. But it wasn't a novel about the Valances as real people so much as a novel about reputations and relationships.
I hoped to hate the book - I'm glad to have loved it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There is something I do not like about Hollinghurst's leading characters. Often they are thieves. In `The Folding Star' our narrator steals boys' unwashed underpants to order and sells them to sexual fetishists. The theme of `The Stranger's Child' seems to be of a biographer as thief from people's lives - sometimes rummaging through dustbins for informative scraps like a tramp in the pay of a tabloid journalist, sometimes intruding into homes under the false colours of professionalism of friendship. The focus is on the tawdry - looking beyond the writing to the sex. In the process of biography, we lose the complexity of real life, and the biographer becomes more like a member of the paparrazi - chasing the hapless celebrity down the street but continuing the pursuit into the victim's dotage. Our leading man exploits the recollections of someone whose age, loss of inhibition and declining mind combine to indiscretion - is this the `truth' after all?
In the course of all this, we have the opportunity to explore succeeding generations of sexual mores and pretty young men - and the move to openness and civil partnerships. Maybe Alan Hollinghurst regrets the passing of days when it was all more underhand and the writer was outside the rules, collecting his material in the world of bar and bed gossip, innuendo and blackmail, and using it to worm his way into `society'.
In the course of all this, we have the opportunity to explore succeeding generations of sexual mores and pretty young men - and the move to openness and civil partnerships. Maybe Alan Hollinghurst regrets the passing of days when it was all more underhand and the writer was outside the rules, collecting his material in the world of bar and bed gossip, innuendo and blackmail, and using it to worm his way into `society'.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Stranger's Child
A fascinating portrait of a faded type of English 20th century intelligensia, with Hollinghurst's usual riffs on the class system, gay culture and more unusually, 'straights' as... Read more
Published 14 days ago by M. L. Sagov
Promising but irritating towards the end
I have read nearly all of Hollinghurst's works and have loved every one of them - until now. Whilst the writing remains beautifully descriptive and articulate, i found myself... Read more
Published 1 month ago by SimonW
A cold dull book
The Stranger's Child is almost certainly well written... I am sure the editing was first class with nary a word out of place. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Soulie61
Great
Looking at it in the long term and taking all things into account, by and large and looking at the greater picture; excellent.
Published 3 months ago by Mr. C. Bignell
Frustrating - I wanted to like it
In the interest of full disclosure, I only managed to get halfway through. Having to get to know new characters in each of the three sections that I read made me lose interest. Read more
Published 3 months ago by BreakfastOfChampions
Undeserved omission from Booker Prize List
The Stranger's Child of course was the shock omission from the Booker Shortlist. It is difficult to see why it was omitted, it is a good book, it practically screams Booker... Read more
Published 3 months ago by R. A. Davison
A slow unwinding...
Let me start by saying that I think Alan Hollinghurst is a brilliant writer and has a way with prose that can be breath-taking at times. But.... Read more
Published 4 months ago by RSM
where's the ending???
I started this book full of hope. I adored The Line of Beauty - and the first chapter of The Stranger's Child drew me in so completely I immediately put the book down as i didn't... Read more
Published 4 months ago by lesley newton
Long and dull
I found this to be over long, dull and repetitive with events eluded too that just don't happen. Just a sequence of inane conversations between middle class people. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Yvonne Moore
Not childish or strange at all.
I read the poem, and assume that the title of the book refers to the notion that a stranger has a clearer more objective view of the world than someone engaged in the narrative arc... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jon A. Crowcroft
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Historical
- Books > Fiction > Literary Fiction
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
