Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty
Contemporary Literary Fiction with a Dangerous Edge
Jul 2, 2008
The Line of Beauty, winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize, opens with protagonist Nick Guest, the son of an antiques shop owner in Barwick, temporarily ruling the roost of a Notting Hill mansion. Hollinghurst describes the beauty and extravagance of the rich with an effortless narrative style, so that the return of the home’s real owner – recently elected conservative MP Gerald Fedden - is secondary to the splendor of the house and Nick’s quiet observations.
The narrowly averted suicidal crisis of the daughter, Catherine Fedden, and the hint of a crush on the son, Toby, set the tone for two themes that hang in the balance throughout the novel – danger and the homosexual coming of age – with the poignant literary backdrop always simultaneously present.
A First Love and the Gay Coming of Age
The tease of the first part of the novel comes in the form of a gay love story, as Nick meets and has several sexual encounters with Leo, a middle-aged black man whom he met through a personals ad. The clash between classes is always present, as is a building sympathy towards the protagonist.
Nick’s insecurities endear him to the reader, and though somewhat disjointed from the rest of the novel, this introduction keeps him from becoming the villain as he becomes more jaded and interacts with more seedy characters.
Leo is aloof, but charming, and a dinner with his family – the fiercely religious mother and quietly affirming daughter – brings the two characters together even in their awkwardness. When the section ends abruptly, jaunting the plot forward in time and away from this first relationship, it leaves the reader longing for a conclusion to the melancholy, powerful introduction to a love scene. Leo and Nick’s first chance to make love in a bed is never described, and the opulence of later chapters (despite an abundance of beds) is never quite so romantic.
Sex, Drugs, and Politics
As the book unfolds, we find Nick growing older and more experienced in the ways of the world, carrying on a secret affair with the son of a Lebanese grocery store magnate and becoming even more at ease with the upper crust social life he has stumbled into even as he depends more and more on cocaine. Though Nick always seems to be on the brink of demise, his downfall is slow and incomplete. He never seems quite addicted, and he continues to fit into the unlikely atmosphere of the Fedden’s social circle.
The novel rarely bursts with the energy the reader expects, but when it does – usually in the form of a homophobic outburst by one of the Feddens’ conservative socialite friends – the scenes are intensely dramatic in what they fail to reveal. Hollinghurst uses literary reference to reflect both beauty and disgust as Nick’s life unfolds, and the understatement is what is masterful about this work.
The final third of the story is full of suspense, and the demise of Nick’s friends one after another serves as a prelude to what must eventually happen to Nick himself. The book’s ending, however, leaves the reader with the same sense of longing with which it began. Nick’s downfall seems incomplete, and he is destined to be the observer.
Packed full of conservative politics, class commentary, dysfunctional families, the growing spectre of AIDS, and the glamour of cocaine, this novel is lengthy but every page is worth reading. The sensational topics somehow do not get lost in the careful tone, and the narrative style is truly a thing of beauty.
The Line of Beauty is Alan Hollinghurst's fourth novel.
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