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A review by nichecase
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
5.0
this is a novel that takes the intersection of historical and biographical detail seriously - it's a sweeping drama of the 1980s while simultaneously maintaining an intimate focus on nick. this also means that the novel functions along the lines of inevitability, with nick often admitting that he feels he "must" do something without really having a reason to. chief among these moments is nick's dance with thatcher:
"It was the simplest thing to do - Nick came forward and sat, half-kneeling, on the sofa's edge, like someone proposing in a play. ... [H]e grinned and said, 'Prime Minister, would you like to dance?'"
there is no sense of agency here - nick dances with thatcher only because it is "simple", not because he takes any particular pleasure in it. in the culminated force of these moments, the novel is almost faustian: nick sacrifices his personal agency and his integrity for access to the pleasures of the feddens and wani, but is lowered to a much worse position than he was at the start of the novel.
"It was the simplest thing to do - Nick came forward and sat, half-kneeling, on the sofa's edge, like someone proposing in a play. ... [H]e grinned and said, 'Prime Minister, would you like to dance?'"
there is no sense of agency here - nick dances with thatcher only because it is "simple", not because he takes any particular pleasure in it. in the culminated force of these moments, the novel is almost faustian: nick sacrifices his personal agency and his integrity for access to the pleasures of the feddens and wani, but is lowered to a much worse position than he was at the start of the novel.