A review by raulbime
The Folding Star by Alan Hollinghurst

4.0

An English gay man in his thirties leaves for a Belgian town where he falls for his young student, Luc, the story centering on this obsession. A rover, Edward Manners, the protagonist, never manages to settle, his days are filled with sex escapades, anticipating and planning said escapades, drinking, teaching and pining away. It wasn't until the end did I realize that no one in the book had a happy romantic relationship, the ones that do don't last and everyone is falling for people that can't offer reciprocity. Just like the protagonist, the plot roves and it isn't until tragedy makes Edward return to England that we are able to see a more humane side to the sex-obsessed protagonist with a look into his past and youth and its discoveries, angst, love, promise, loss and grief. The strange thing about this book is the characters I really liked are those we get to know little about, and the moments I wanted more of were rather short. But until the end, even when it seems like Edward's obsession will materialize into a settled fulfillment, the pining and longing persists.

Hollinghurst can write, and I mean write. Not a single sentence falls flat. It really is incredible how tight this book was considering how long it is, at some points because of how loathsome some characters were I was looking for that weak point that would make me abandon this book but I couldn't stop reading. I haven't met anyone who writes of cruising scenes and their atmosphere as intensely accurate as Hollinghurst does. Even the individuals in the story were fleshy with how familiar they were, perhaps a contributing reason to why I disliked them so much.