Hollinghurst gains the readers trust in two ways: one, by having the main character Nick register reality at various levels and two, by noting the details-Nick notices how an old inherited jacket smells, experiences life as a series of shocks, and has sex fantasies that are extravagant partly because of his virginal state. His novel, The Line of Beauty, is initially a coming of age story about a well-educated young man, Nick, who is befriended by Toby, the son of a British government official during the reign of Margaret Thatcher. Alan Hollinghurst has talent, and talent for which he has won awards, but his expression of that talent seems limited by the assumptions he has inherited and accepted about the subjects he handles-and also by his consciousness of the effects he wants too desperately to stir in readers.Īlan Hollinghurst pays attention to the said and the unsaid, to physical space, and to some of the effects of social and political power.
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