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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A man looking back on his life. Its told in a low key understated manner - which always makes the story seem sad to me. I like how he examined particular incidents and relationships in great detail and then there would be big jumps in time.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Throughout the 460+ pages, I don’t think our protagonist (with an Oxford scholarship) manages to finish one thought or sentence. It must be just as infuriating to have a conversation with someone whose thoughts trail off in a stream of ellipses as it is to read it:
“Oh….”
“Gosh…”
“Well….”
“I….”
“Uh….”
“It’s just that…”
If I were having a conversation with this bloke, I’d have sent him to be examined for signs of a stroke about thirty times over.
This tome is also about 250 pages longer than need be. It basically lurches from school scenes, to dinners, to play rehearsals, and then repeat again for six decades.
The “Giles” character, meant to be the totemic villain of the novel, barely interacts with “Dave” in primary school, and then appears about three times after that. Enormously misleading. This has nothing to do with a Brexit rivalry, and is more a poorly edited wordfest by a wholly unremarkable person.
“Oh….”
“Gosh…”
“Well….”
“I….”
“Uh….”
“It’s just that…”
If I were having a conversation with this bloke, I’d have sent him to be examined for signs of a stroke about thirty times over.
This tome is also about 250 pages longer than need be. It basically lurches from school scenes, to dinners, to play rehearsals, and then repeat again for six decades.
The “Giles” character, meant to be the totemic villain of the novel, barely interacts with “Dave” in primary school, and then appears about three times after that. Enormously misleading. This has nothing to do with a Brexit rivalry, and is more a poorly edited wordfest by a wholly unremarkable person.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
One of those novels that are all character work and not (explicitly) about anything, which can be pretty dicey propositions. Luckily, the quality of Hollinghurst’s writing swept me away with it all, and none of the usual frustrations seem to apply. In many ways it’s standard Hollinghurst: public schools, aristocracy, the London gay scene of the 70s. But it feels more like a master at work than a retread - the shear realism of the characters and the preciseness of the images and moods evoked strike you at every turn. And always lurking in the background like an unpleasant smell, the worst character Giles, David’s thematic opposite - a Frankenstein’s monster of Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and all their ilk, and the moral stain they represent.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
reflective
slow-paced