- Category: Books » Fiction & Literature » Literary
- Format: Paperback Learn more about the Paperback format using Tower WIKI.
- Publisher: St Martins Pr
- ISBN: 1582346100
- WAPI (Tower ID): 100463439
- Release Date: October 17, 2005
- Average Customer Review: There are no customer reviews yet. Be the first to write a review!
- Tower.com Sales Rank: #67568 in Books (See Top 100 Books Bestsellers)
- #7540 in Fiction & Literature (See Top 100 Fiction & Literature Bestsellers)
- #722 in Literary (See Top 100 Literary Bestsellers)
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Product DescriptionRun a Quick Search on "The Line Of Beauty" by Alan Hollinghurst to Browse Related Products:Browse more products related to "The Line Of Beauty"Browse more products related to "Alan Hollinghurst"Review"Though he's best known for his elegant descriptions of gay male life and pitch-perfect prose, Hollinghurst is most striking here for his successful, often damning, observations about the vast divides between the ruling class and everyone else....A beautifully realized portrait of a decade and a social class...." "No one writes novels better than Hollinghurst; he puts together books that are like pieces of furniture made without nails. Here he dramatizes with innumerable apt details and intricate plotting a whole household meant to stand for the Thatcher era....Things move along in this tour de force at a rapid pace...: a large cast of sharply drawn characters comes in and out; one dazzling set piece succeeds another; the dialogue is so good you want to hear actors deliver it on film....The writing has never been sharper...." "As a novelist, Alan Hollinghurst's has set himself an intimidating standard....To say, then, that his latest novel, the Booker Prize-winning LINE OF BEAUTY, is also his finest should give some idea of its accomplishment, not just in the breadth of its ambition but in its felicities of observation and expression....Despite Nick's sexual adventures, the novel marks a change from Hollinghurst's predominantly homocentric fiction. In fact, female characters, hitherto felt by some readers as a decided absence, are among the liveliest here....Although it gathers ominously in mood, THE LINE OF BEAUTY feels more blissful than baleful in its anatomy of the era because it is, among other things, a magnificent comedy of manners." "Among its other wonders, this almost perfectly written novel...delineates what's arguably the most coruscating portrait of a plutocracy since Goya painted the Spanish Bourbons....While Hollinghurst's story has the true feel of Jamesian drama, it is the authorial intelligence illuminating otherwise trivial pieces of story business so as to make them seem alive and mysteriously significant that gives the most pleasure....This novel has the air of a classic." "Hollinghurst proves to be one of the sharpest observers of privileged social groupings since Anthony Powell....For the first time, there is a clear sense that Hollinghurst has extended his powers to create a universe rather than a clique; and though it adopts a highly privileged perspective, the novel has sufficient breadth to evoke the full social spectrum of 1980s Britain--gay and straight, rich and poor." "The novel moves forward in a series of brilliant set scenes, pieces of atmosphere, moods sharply described and delineated. The plot...deals with the enrichment of Nick's experience, his moving from snobbish provincial to uneasy cosmopolitan, his close observing of the rich and the ruling class, his experiences with drugs, sex, and high art. It would be easy to bring the novel down lightly.... But [Hollinghurst] has not given up his ambitions to have an old-fashioned plotline, with the tabloid press and lovers discovered and much else....Paragraph by paragraph, his novel is written with such care, such sweet attention to detail, nuance, rhythm, and the pure comedy of things, that his efforts to make it all tie up in action hardly matter." "In this season of James-chasing, here is the real thing: a novel at once in explicit dialogue with Henry James and more quietly but deeply infected by the rhythms of his prose. But Alan Hollinghurst's novel is not an example of overfed antiquarianism; it rations what it needs from the Jamesian gift. Hollinghurst's talents are themselves quite large enough to manage any overwhelming predecessor, and the result is a confidently contemporary novel....Hollinghurst's prose is a genuine achievement--lavish, poised, sinuously alert....THE LINE OF BEAUTY is an ample and sophisticated delight, charged with hundreds of delicate impressions and insights, and scores of vital and lovely sentences. It is at once domestic and political, psychological and historical. It is funny, moving, and finally despairing." First linePeter Crowther's book on the election was already in the shops. It was called LANDSLIDE!, and the witty assistant at Dillon's had arranged the window in a scaled-down version of that natural disaster. Publisher's noteMoving into the attic room in the Notting Hill home of the wealthy, politically connected Fedden family in 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest becomes caught up in the rising fortunes of this glamorous family and finds his own life forever altered by his association during the boom years of the 1980s. By the author of The Swimming-Pool Library. AnnotationIt's the 1980s, and Margaret Thatcher is Britain's PM. A Henry James scholar named Nick Guest, just down from Oxford, is staying with his friend Gerald at the posh home of Gerald's father, a Tory member of Parliament. There he befriends the mentally fragile young daughter of the family, as he also becomes caught up in the world of the idle rich, learning eventually that there are indeed vast differences between the rich and everyone else. The novel takes Nick through the '80s, as he comes to terms with his homosexuality, has a number of affairs, witnesses the ravages of AIDS, discovers cocaine, and finally is confronted with a scandal that could destroy him. Margaret Thatcher, the reigning queen behind the upscale glitz of Britain in that decade, makes a fascinating cameo appearance late in the novel. THE LINE OF BEAUTY won the Booker Prize in 2004 and was a New York Times Notable Book for 2004. If You Enjoy "The Line Of Beauty (Paperback)", May We Also Recommend:Customer Reviews for "The Line Of Beauty (Paperback)" by Alan Hollinghurst (Author)There are no customer reviews yet. Be the first to write a review! Literary BestsellersFiction & Literature Bestselling Books
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