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The Line of Beauty Hardcover – 16 April 2004
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In the summer of 1983, 20-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Tory MP Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby – whom Nick had idolized at Oxford – and Catherine, always standing at a critical angle to the family and its assumptions and ambitions.
As the Thatcher boom-years unfold, Nick, an innocent in the worlds of politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of the glamorous family he is entangled with. Two vividly contrasting love-affairs, with a young black clerk and a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the dangers and rewards of his own private pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling to him as that of power and riches to his friends.
Starting at the moment The Swimming-Pool Library ended, The Line of Beauty traces the further history of a decade of change and tragedy. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly comic, it is a major work by one of the finest writers in the English language.
- Print length512 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPicador
- Publication date16 April 2004
- Dimensions13.5 x 4 x 21.6 cm
- ISBN-109780330483209
- ISBN-13978-0330483209
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Review
'the best-deserving Booker winner ever' -- Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times
A classic of our times The work of a great English stylist in full maturity; a masterpiece. -- Observer
A magnificent novel... There are literally thousands of impeccably nuanced touches. -- Daily Telegraph
Luminous... [an] astonishingly Jamesian novel. -- The Times
Must rank among the funniest [novels] ever written about Thatcher's Britain, while remaining one of the most tragically sad. -- Financial Times
... it is perhaps the book that Henry James would have written if he were alive now. -- Kate Atkinson, Daily Telegraph
Alan Hollinghursts The Line of Beauty deserves all the praise that has been heaped upon it. -- Geoff Dyer, Daily Telegraph
Alan Hollinghursts The Line of Beauty is the best new novel I have read for some years. -- John Lanchester, Daily Telegraph
Alan Hollinghursts The Line of Beauty is the first Booker prize winner in years to deserve it -- Barry Humphries, Sunday Telegraph
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 033048320X
- Publisher : Picador (16 April 2004)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 512 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780330483209
- ISBN-13 : 978-0330483209
- Dimensions : 13.5 x 4 x 21.6 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 192,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 9,997 in LGBTQ+ Literature & Fiction (Books)
- 23,639 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- 29,266 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)
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We experience everything through the eyes and thoughts of the central character Nick Guest. His surname is appropriate in that throughout the four-year time-frame of the novel (1983-1987) Nick is living as a guest in the family home of his well-to-do friend from Oxford days, Toby, and it is in this environment that he and we meet most of the other characters, including Toby's father, the ambitious junior Tory minister Gerald Fedden. There is even a memorable encounter (and a dance, no less) with Mrs Thatcher, referred to within the family as 'The Lady'.
Nick does have a secret life too; we follow him from innocence through to a series of casual homosexual encounters as well as a longer-term gay relationship, sometimes fuelled by cocaine, and shadowed by the then-new threat of Aids. Nick is a libertine but no hell-raiser; he is known by the family as 'the aesthete' and spends most of his time in quiet observation or hardly-noticed participation in the family affairs, until events conspire to provide him with a more dramatic and unwanted role in proceedings as the story moves to its climax.
'The Line of Beauty' works on many levels. It's a superbly-nuanced study of manners in Thatcher's Britain; it's stiletto-stealth satire; it's revealing and frank about the lifestyle adopted by some members of the gay community (though I wearied of the sex, if I may say that without sounding like an over-worked prostitute); and it's an aesthetic delight.
The narrative interiority is for me both a strength and a weakness. Hollinghurst's presentation of the emotional depths and shallow insights of Nick is faultless but Nick's inadequacies in human understanding become ours too - so many of his otherwise brilliant character expositions fail to penetrate to the heart. As a result we get to know Nick inside out, but the supporting cast only outside in. Hollinghurst's intense, masterful use of his chosen narrative device is, paradoxically, what prevents 'The Line of Beauty' claiming an unarguable place as a great book; but it gets close.
This reviewer blogs regularly as Writer in the North.
The story follows Nick Guest, a gay graduate from Oxford University who has found himself adopted by the family of Gerald Fedden. Fedden is the father of Nick's friend from university, Toby. Gerald Fedden is a fairly prominent Conservative politician whose political career provides a constant background to the explorations of friendship, sexuality and drugs that the story engages with.
The most pleasing aspect about the novel is the way that it deploys Nick's viewpoint to flit in and out of the broader political context which avoids it becoming a staid political critique of Thatcher's Britain. Readers therefore avoid being manipulated towards a simplistic conclusion about Tory Britain in the '80s even if the activities of this particular household are personally fairly damning.
Viewed from the perspective of austerity Britain, the presentation of the economically booming Britain of the '80s is arguably even more compelling. The casual attitude to both drugs and wealth certainly gives food for thought and provides a significant reminder to the reader about the social legacy that underpins the political machinations of 21st century politicians, a significant number of whom would have partied with the best of them at the kind of parties detailed within the fabric of this novel.
There are few characters that are very likable in this novel and it is perhaps a telling fact that one of the most endearing characters is Catherine, Toby's 'mad' sister, who, more than anyone, sees the society that she frequents for what it really is.
I only really had one criticism of the novel. In my opinion, and this wasn't shared by my friend who I discussed the book with the other day, Hollinghurst's prose struck me as being a little pretentious at times; particularly with regard to his lexical choices, which reflected to me a slightly contrived attempt to puff up the intellectual clout of the narrative.
Overall, I would thoroughly recommend 'The Line of Beauty'. It immerses the reader in a fascinating period of history for the UK, giving an intense flavour of a Tory-led society that publicly struggled to keep a lid on the private cocktail of sex, drugs and sexuality that bubbled underneath, threatening to shatter the foundations of the family-centric idyll of Conservatism.
Initially, I found it hard work. I didn't really like Nick, I found him to be a bit of a sponge on the family he was staying with, and the descriptions of his initial sexual encounter were a bit of a shock. Does being slightly disturbed about reading a description of a homosexual encounter make me shallow? Maybe, but while I certainly believe that anyone has the right to do whatever takes their fancy (as long as no innocent party is hurt), I wasn't expecting it. So, the first 20% or so were a struggle and I was already envisioning giving this book a paltry two stars (I liked the style!). However, I stuck with it, and am glad I did.
As the book progressed, it became more and more engrossing. Nick's relationship with the other characters became more interesting. His struggles to fit in to the different crowds (his old Oxford friends, the upper-class acquaintance's he meets), start to mean more, and he develops as as a person, and a character.
Of course being set in the 80's, with a large number of gay characters, AIDS has a fairly fundamental part of the story, and it is handled very well by the author, the way that many people viewed it (a plague that the "homo's" deserve) is nicely juxtapositioned with the hurt, shame, and pain of those affected (both those who have it, and their families). It really is well handled.
I could go on, but this is a great book. A bit like a new improved like "The Great Gatsby" in many ways, but updated and set in 80's England.
The downside? Not with the story, but Picador obviously didn't even bother to proof read the Kindle version. Very poor.






