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A review by nwhyte
The Folding Star by Alan Hollinghurst
5.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2644625.html
I thought it was excellent. It's been described as halfway between Death in Venice and À la recherche du temps perdu, but I think that's a bit unfair; yes, the central emotional relationship is the narrator's crush on a young boy, but there's a lot of well observed stuff about art, sex, youth, bars, education, the German occupation of Belgium in the second world war, annoying Spanish girls in the neighbouring flat who use up your hot water, and what it's like being an Englishman in his early thirties living in Belgium who has enough Dutch to get by. The narrator knows that his behaviour is foolish, but he is surrounded by other flawed people behaving equally foolishly, and there are dark secrets that he does not spot until he is led into them. An intense novel of both the soul and body. Recommended.
I thought it was excellent. It's been described as halfway between Death in Venice and À la recherche du temps perdu, but I think that's a bit unfair; yes, the central emotional relationship is the narrator's crush on a young boy, but there's a lot of well observed stuff about art, sex, youth, bars, education, the German occupation of Belgium in the second world war, annoying Spanish girls in the neighbouring flat who use up your hot water, and what it's like being an Englishman in his early thirties living in Belgium who has enough Dutch to get by. The narrator knows that his behaviour is foolish, but he is surrounded by other flawed people behaving equally foolishly, and there are dark secrets that he does not spot until he is led into them. An intense novel of both the soul and body. Recommended.