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A review by saranies
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
5.0
This book could have so easily fallen victim to the worst cliches of the genre, but it didn't. The writing was beautiful and I cared so much for Nick, the main character.
I wish I were more familiar with the work of Henry James, because I think that I missed out on some allusions. I'm fairly well-read, but most of the references were unfamiliar to me.
The book jumps around a little, and it felt jarring at times but gave it a greater sense of reality. I have some questions about what happened to certain characters: did Nick finish his PhD or did he just give it up to be a kept man? What was in the incident in May that made Wadi mostly stop his coke habit? I missed Leo, and I do want to know the details of why their relationship fell apart. Was Nick picking up men in bathrooms when he was with Leo?
I was very nervous that Nick was going to contract AIDS and waste away at the end of the book, and almost stopped reading about halfway through when it seemed that's the way it would go. I am aware of the great loss of life that happened for gay men in the 80s, but I'm weary of reading novels with gay protagonists who have to pay for their new sexual freedom with death. Nick was living in the house of a wealthy and conservative MP who worshipped Thatcher, and the irony of him contracting the disease while under that particular roof would have been too much. This book did a good job of addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis without killing off Nick: his first boyfriend dies of the disease and the man who keeps him (Wadi, his school friend) is wasting away at the end. We're left with Nick confident that his most recent HIV test will come back positive, but that could just be because the rest of his life was going so terribly. Unlike the other unresolved questions within the book, I'm actually glad that we don't know Nick's fate. I like the idea of him continuing beyond the 80s and doing more with what he has.
I wish I were more familiar with the work of Henry James, because I think that I missed out on some allusions. I'm fairly well-read, but most of the references were unfamiliar to me.
The book jumps around a little, and it felt jarring at times but gave it a greater sense of reality. I have some questions about what happened to certain characters: did Nick finish his PhD or did he just give it up to be a kept man? What was in the incident in May that made Wadi mostly stop his coke habit? I missed Leo, and I do want to know the details of why their relationship fell apart. Was Nick picking up men in bathrooms when he was with Leo?
I was very nervous that Nick was going to contract AIDS and waste away at the end of the book, and almost stopped reading about halfway through when it seemed that's the way it would go. I am aware of the great loss of life that happened for gay men in the 80s, but I'm weary of reading novels with gay protagonists who have to pay for their new sexual freedom with death. Nick was living in the house of a wealthy and conservative MP who worshipped Thatcher, and the irony of him contracting the disease while under that particular roof would have been too much. This book did a good job of addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis without killing off Nick: his first boyfriend dies of the disease and the man who keeps him (Wadi, his school friend) is wasting away at the end. We're left with Nick confident that his most recent HIV test will come back positive, but that could just be because the rest of his life was going so terribly. Unlike the other unresolved questions within the book, I'm actually glad that we don't know Nick's fate. I like the idea of him continuing beyond the 80s and doing more with what he has.