Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, 25 Jan 2004
A lush description of the excruciating state of semi-requited love where he/she's with you for sex on and off for years but doesn't love you, and you'd do anything, would give your life. If like me you've survived it, scarred and damaged, you'll recognise Julian and Sebastian's relationship regardless of your gender, orientation or age, and maybe you can sort out whether it really is 'better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all', to quote a genuine Victorian poet. If not, try Shakespeare's sonnets ...But this book (or rather Sebastian) is also a lot of fun. Especially I loved the way Sebastian makes a philosophical/religious virtue of the stereotypical gay penchants for food and shopping - providing total justification for anyone who still has a little shame lurking back there. There are a few editing errors that will annoy nitpickers like me, e.g. it's unthinkable that the pedantic Julian Collins, as a great cook, would have written 'boeuf bourguignonne', let alone (as an Oxford Fellow) spelled the college 'Magdalene'; and to a resident of the city there are some oddities in the way the book uses the streets of Oxford, but that just makes it seem like a fantasy city, increasing the sense of Julian's isolation, so maybe it's not a bad thing. Read it at the weekend: I made the mistake of starting this book at 10 pm and had to stay up until 4 am to finish it.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gay love in Oxford and Dorset, 31 Aug 2003
This book is a beautiful mixture of erotic gay love and a factual search for truth. Julian Collins is an Oxford lecturer whose research interests centre on Victorian poets, in particular,the fictitious Lord (Maximilian) Melcourtwho was himself gay,having a young lover (Toto). Julian is himself a middle-aged gay man who falls madly in love with one of his students, Sebastian Saloniere. The story is an inter-weaving of Julian's desperation to hang on to Sebastian, whose youthful sex-drive causes him to stray from the path of fidelity and his almost obsessional search for the truth about Max and Toto, with whom he identifies. Almost every chapter's title alludes to food (Julian is a self-confessed consummate chef). The book contains lyrical accounts of his and Sebastian's love-making, as well as highly entertaining and amusing encounters with the various people he meets in his quest for more information about his subject matter. In all, a highly enjoyable and readable novel.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Oxford lecturer besotted, 4 Dec 2006
Dr Julian Collins is a lecturer at Oxford, obsessed with the life of Victorian poet Lord Melcroft and his lover Toto. When a beautiful amoral student named Sebastian Saloniere, apples for a place at Oxford Collins is smitten, and what follows is a tempestuous affair. Sebastian is also deeply interested in Morcroft and Toto, and as they pursue both their affair and the study of the Victorian poet, parallels between their respective lives become apparent.
The characters are well drawn, and Sebastian is adorable, and not just physically. The story is imaginative with plenty of twists, and a few surprises.
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