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The Folding Star
Edward Manners, a young British man in search of fresh air, arrives in a small Flemish town to teach English and soon falls in love with one of his students, Luc Altidore, an enigmatic seventeen-year-old boy who has just been expelled from the school.
While in England an old lover dies of AIDS, in the small Flemish town Edward meets a series of peculiar characters: Cherif, a Moroccan born in Paris who frequents the local gay bar; the eccentric Matt, who sells pornographic material and used underwear, and Paul Echevin, father of another of his students and director of the local museum, who introduces him to the devious world of Edgard Orst, a symbolist painter who died during the Nazi occupation, who lived a rapt passion for a famous actress and painted striking triptychs.
And like a triptych this novel is structured in which Hollinghurst demonstrates his talent to mix the refined and the sordid, and to delve into the ins and outs of desire and passions, masterfully combining tragedy and humor.
The Folding Star was a finalist and, according to many critics, a "moral winner" of the Booker Prize, which was ultimately not awarded for the explicitness of some scenes that apparently scandalized the jury. Double desire.
While in England an old lover dies of AIDS, in the small Flemish town Edward meets a series of peculiar characters: Cherif, a Moroccan born in Paris who frequents the local gay bar; the eccentric Matt, who sells pornographic material and used underwear, and Paul Echevin, father of another of his students and director of the local museum, who introduces him to the devious world of Edgard Orst, a symbolist painter who died during the Nazi occupation, who lived a rapt passion for a famous actress and painted striking triptychs.
And like a triptych this novel is structured in which Hollinghurst demonstrates his talent to mix the refined and the sordid, and to delve into the ins and outs of desire and passions, masterfully combining tragedy and humor.
The Folding Star was a finalist and, according to many critics, a "moral winner" of the Booker Prize, which was ultimately not awarded for the explicitness of some scenes that apparently scandalized the jury. Double desire.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Alan Hollinghurst
45 books1,264 followersAlan Hollinghurst is an English novelist, and winner of the 2004 Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.
He read English at Magdalen College, Oxford graduating in 1975; and subsequently took the further degree of Master of Literature (1979). While at Oxford he shared a house with Andrew Motion, and was awarded the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1974, the year before Motion.
In the late 1970s he became a lecturer at Magdalen, and then at Somerville College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1981 he moved on to lecture at University College London. In 1997, he went on an Asia book tour in Singapore.
In 1981 he joined The Times Literary Supplement and was the paper's deputy editor from 1982 to 1995.
He lives in London.
He read English at Magdalen College, Oxford graduating in 1975; and subsequently took the further degree of Master of Literature (1979). While at Oxford he shared a house with Andrew Motion, and was awarded the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1974, the year before Motion.
In the late 1970s he became a lecturer at Magdalen, and then at Somerville College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1981 he moved on to lecture at University College London. In 1997, he went on an Asia book tour in Singapore.
In 1981 he joined The Times Literary Supplement and was the paper's deputy editor from 1982 to 1995.
He lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews
April 18, 2020
Boy, am I SOO enchanted with this elusive Mr. Hollinghurst! Although “The Folding Star” is definitely weaker and less “literary” than the rest (“Swimming-Pool Library,” “The Line of Beauty”), it still has that tight and elegant mechanical heart which impels the modern reader to want to just sit down to read it, badly (I myself had to actively hunt the book down: I got the original U.S. first edition for 99 cents on Ebay). Yes, this is the least best in his enviable oeuvre—but it happens to have the raunchiest scenes, the most explicit, the most inciting (!!!)
Hollinghurst’s vocabulary is mad impressive, like reading a Victorian novel where all the characters become entangled/infatuated with others, all who happen to be men—the smuttiest of events are portrayed beautifully, with all details exquisite. It's like a youthful “Death in Venice”, with tragedy less present than wit (although aging IS a theme). No one else can write like this, or can depend on the gay world so profoundly for authenticity and plot; to bring out the poetry so implicit in cruisin’ European streets, in meeting young, eager lads who have but one thought uniting them in an almost-religious fervor is not an easy feat.
This is as if Henry James & Tom of Finland ever got together & had a joyous, gay old time…
Books like these are super hard to come by (trust me, I know). Invaluable. Always extraordinary in their originality and always wicked fun.
Hollinghurst’s vocabulary is mad impressive, like reading a Victorian novel where all the characters become entangled/infatuated with others, all who happen to be men—the smuttiest of events are portrayed beautifully, with all details exquisite. It's like a youthful “Death in Venice”, with tragedy less present than wit (although aging IS a theme). No one else can write like this, or can depend on the gay world so profoundly for authenticity and plot; to bring out the poetry so implicit in cruisin’ European streets, in meeting young, eager lads who have but one thought uniting them in an almost-religious fervor is not an easy feat.
This is as if Henry James & Tom of Finland ever got together & had a joyous, gay old time…
Books like these are super hard to come by (trust me, I know). Invaluable. Always extraordinary in their originality and always wicked fun.
September 9, 2014
With this, Alan Hollinghurst becomes my favorite living novelist. For me the phrase means a feeling of excitement about what someone will write in the future, what new domains of experience they’ll claim. Martin Amis and Edmund White do not evoke this feeling any longer, though I love them; Updike did, if in his last decade only journalistically. I enjoyed Updike’s testimony as a still-acute American elder, his comments on epoch-defining public events—-9/11, the historic election of an African-American president, the return of hard economic times evocative, in speculative origin if not quite in severity and extent, of those that exerted a formative force on his youth and genius.
Though I found The Swimming Pool Library and The Line of Beauty uniquely accomplished, The Folding Star is the first to get me all Trilling-esque: here’s the novel as the “bright book of life”; the rightfully dominant genre, the literary register of our times; the dense, dramatic, life-like union-place of all moral, sensory, and intellectual attentions. Hollinghurst has said he reveres Nabokov (with Proust and James) as one of his “grand and shadowy” masters, and both showcase the intellectual sensualism of the truly, the tirelessly responsive. Like Nabokov’s, Hollinghurst’s prose can go anywhere. He can trace the poetic contour of any event, action or situation. His descriptions do justice to a sleepy Flemish museum:
to music played at a funeral:
to fucking:
The narrator, Edward, is a thirtysomething Englishman giving private English lessons in a secretive and sleepy Belgian town. He’s another one of Hollinghurst’s all-noting aesthetes, excitable, passionate even...but ever-spectatorial, and poetically melancholic; he’s transfixed Lolita-ishly, Death in Venice-ishly, by a much younger man. Whereas Nabokov’s prose is more obviously bejeweled and striking even when abstracted anthologically, most of Hollinghurst‘s best passages tie together, with precise images of a dreamlike suggestiveness, ideas that have been slowly accruing to the context. He has a great way of suddenly taking up, in a significant handful, all the themes coursing through the book. Even his gorgeous patches are set-pieces that spread over several pages. A particular high point is a magnificently extended scene in which Edward and another pupil, not the boy he's obsessed with, search a dilapidated country house, a disused sybarite’s retreat in which they think the runaway Luc might be squatting.
Hollinghurst is capable of motions whose replete stateliness put me in mind not only of Nabokov, but, at times, of Browne and of Gibbon.
Though I found The Swimming Pool Library and The Line of Beauty uniquely accomplished, The Folding Star is the first to get me all Trilling-esque: here’s the novel as the “bright book of life”; the rightfully dominant genre, the literary register of our times; the dense, dramatic, life-like union-place of all moral, sensory, and intellectual attentions. Hollinghurst has said he reveres Nabokov (with Proust and James) as one of his “grand and shadowy” masters, and both showcase the intellectual sensualism of the truly, the tirelessly responsive. Like Nabokov’s, Hollinghurst’s prose can go anywhere. He can trace the poetic contour of any event, action or situation. His descriptions do justice to a sleepy Flemish museum:
I felt a little out of step among the chaste northern saints and inward-looking Virgins—-there wasn’t one of them that welcomed you or held your gaze as the dark-eyed Italian gods and holy men so often did. Absurd, but I wanted a greeting, even across five hundred years. Here everyone looked down or away, in gestures of reproachful purity. The pious, unflattering portraits, too, of capped and wimpled worthies, were proudly abstinent. They drew respectful crowds of Sunday couples in rustling waterproofs (the day had made an uncertain start).
to music played at a funeral:
The organist was wittering on through his formless and infinitely extendable introit, music that had never been written down, mere sour doodlings to fill the time, varied now and then by a yawning change of registration like a false alert.
to fucking:
I’d used up all the lube Cherif had left in the jar, but I saw tears slide from the corners of his eyes, his upper lip curled back in a gesture like anguish or goaded aggression. His hand flickered up against my chest to stay me or slow me. I was mad with love; and only half –aware, as the rhythm of the fuck took hold, of a deaf desire to hurt him, to watch a punishment inflicted and pay him back for what he’d done to me, the expense and humiliations of so many weeks. I saw the pleasure start up inside for him, as if he didn’t expect it, his cock grew hard again in two seconds, his mouth slackened, but I made him flinch with steeper little thrusts. I was up on the chair, fucking him like a squaddy doing push-ups, ten, twenty, fifty…I had a dim sense of protest, postponed as if he wasn’t quite sure, he was folded in two, powerless, the breath was pushed out of him, there was just the slicked and rubbered pumping of my cock in his arse, his little stoppered farts. His chest, his face, were smeared with sweat, but it was mine: the water poured off me like a boxer, my soaked hair fell forward and stung my eyes.
The narrator, Edward, is a thirtysomething Englishman giving private English lessons in a secretive and sleepy Belgian town. He’s another one of Hollinghurst’s all-noting aesthetes, excitable, passionate even...but ever-spectatorial, and poetically melancholic; he’s transfixed Lolita-ishly, Death in Venice-ishly, by a much younger man. Whereas Nabokov’s prose is more obviously bejeweled and striking even when abstracted anthologically, most of Hollinghurst‘s best passages tie together, with precise images of a dreamlike suggestiveness, ideas that have been slowly accruing to the context. He has a great way of suddenly taking up, in a significant handful, all the themes coursing through the book. Even his gorgeous patches are set-pieces that spread over several pages. A particular high point is a magnificently extended scene in which Edward and another pupil, not the boy he's obsessed with, search a dilapidated country house, a disused sybarite’s retreat in which they think the runaway Luc might be squatting.
It was just the time to see the place, not the kind of dawn Luc’s grandfather had named the house for or would ever have witnessed there, cold skies above drenched wilderness; though there were hints of classic pleasures, a cloud on the lake just big enough to clothe a god in a fresco stooping on a sex-quest. I’d lost Marcel; I wandered down towards the water, reluctantly moved by the relics of all this fake galanterie, my mind vaguely in summer, though a cold gust insisted it was December and made me twitch up Luc’s jacket-collar. I turned back and saw the tiny top windows of the tower colour in the early sun, as though lanterns burnt in them.
...the boards had been ripped from the windows, brambles quested in.
Hollinghurst is capable of motions whose replete stateliness put me in mind not only of Nabokov, but, at times, of Browne and of Gibbon.
April 18, 2020
An English gay man in his thirties leaves for a Belgian town where he falls for his young student, Luc, the story centering on this obsession. A rover, Edward Manners, the protagonist, never manages to settle, his days are filled with sex escapades, anticipating and planning said escapades, drinking, teaching and pining away. It wasn't until the end did I realize that no one in the book had a happy romantic relationship, the ones that do don't last and everyone is falling for people that can't offer reciprocity. Just like the protagonist, the plot roves and it isn't until tragedy makes Edward return to England that we are able to see a more humane side to the sex-obsessed protagonist with a look into his past and youth and its discoveries, angst, love, promise, loss and grief. The strange thing about this book is the characters I really liked are those we get to know little about, and the moments I wanted more of were rather short. But until the end, even when it seems like Edward's obsession will materialize into a settled fulfillment, the pining and longing persists.
Hollinghurst can write, and I mean write. Not a single sentence falls flat. It really is incredible how tight this book was considering how long it is, at some points because of how loathsome some characters were I was looking for that weak point that would make me abandon this book but I couldn't stop reading. I haven't met anyone who writes of cruising scenes and their atmosphere as intensely accurate as Hollinghurst does. Even the individuals in the story were fleshy with how familiar they were, perhaps a contributing reason to why I disliked them so much.
Hollinghurst can write, and I mean write. Not a single sentence falls flat. It really is incredible how tight this book was considering how long it is, at some points because of how loathsome some characters were I was looking for that weak point that would make me abandon this book but I couldn't stop reading. I haven't met anyone who writes of cruising scenes and their atmosphere as intensely accurate as Hollinghurst does. Even the individuals in the story were fleshy with how familiar they were, perhaps a contributing reason to why I disliked them so much.
November 16, 2011
I was reassured by the fact that this book landed on the Carmen Callil and Colm Toibin Modern Library list of Best Novels in English from 1950-1998. To see the complete list click on the link: http://www.listsofbests.com/list/2738...
It is an unusual list. There are a lot of books on the list that I hadn't read and more than I thought possible that I haven't even heard of. To say the least it is an intriguing list. I really enjoyed Colm Toibin's novel about Henry James called The Master and so I have been excited about digging into some of the authors on the list that I've never read before.
Alan Hollinghurst is a talented writer, lyrical, accomplished, and I hope capable of more than this book. Ultimately the problem I had with the book is that I never felt any connection with Edward Manners. In fact I barely knew much about him except that he was obsessed with sex, obsessed with himself, and about as shallow as a puddle of water on a concrete walkway. In the first part of the book Edward is consumed with this unrealistic passion for this seemingly unattainable 17 year old student named Luc. Between moments of anxiety about the object of his attraction he has several meaningless bouts of sex with men he has met under dodgy circumstances. I obtained some hope during the second part when Hollinghurst introduces the death of Edward's friend Ralph (Dawn)and he gives me more background on Edward and his life before he became a tutor. I have a glimmer of a person who once enjoyed poetry and wrote poetry before he became a man preoccupied with his next sexual encounter and little else. I believe that Hollinghurst was trying to present Edward as a tragic figure, but to accomplish this I would need to feel some sympathy for the character. Unfortunately I never mustered up enough interest in the character to ever feel any sympathy. In fact as the novel progresses I kept thinking Edward deserves much worse to happen to him.
Edward does have sex with Luc though not in the slow, seductive, romantic way he had daydreamed about through out the novel. Luc seduces him and afterwards Edward is confused as to how he actually feels about obtaining the object of his obsession.
"I tiptoed out for a drink of water and came back gulping from the glass like a child. I thought he might have vanished, it seemed foolish to let him out of my sight; but there he was, a goldish blur. I half-stumbled on his clothes, and crouched to rifle them-but what did they matter the boy himself was here? I found every fear answered and calmed by that luminous fact. He was lying in my bed, naked, sleeping-flat out. It was a triumph. Tears slipped down my face, I didn't really know why-it felt like gratitude, but also they were the tears that register some deep displacement, a bereavement sending up its sudden choking wave. It struck me I must be mourning everything that came before-it was the desolate undertow of success."
Okay, Hollinghurst can write, no doubt and even though I didn't particularly like this novel it certainly will not keep me from reading more books by him in the future. I think Hollinghurst wanted to write a novel about obsession and certainly did, but with 412 pages I felt he could have done much more. The slender, well conceived, well written landmark of literature, Lolita would have been a better framework for success.
On a quest to find Luc, Edward is riding in a car with Marcel, a friend of Luc and Marcel is excited. To him this is a grand adventure.
"Marcel was restless, eager, whisked away from his lessons on a quest for his beautiful and scandalous senior. He was pink faced at the privilege of it and chattered solemnly until my nervous silence, my curt demands for help with road-signs and turnings, affected him too, rather as a parent's misery seeps into a child and subdues it."
As a parent currently raising two teenagers that line hit me RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES. I know as I grow older, like most people, I am getting grumpier, less patient, more aware of my failings (insecurities) and feeling the weight of accumulated baggage from my interactions with colleagues and the human race at large. I do not want to lay any of that on the shoulders of my kids at any age certainly not now. Their exuberance and immaturity can be annoying and I know I have been guilty of throwing water on their youthful flames. The importance of reading is that even in a book I didn't appreciate as much as I expected I found a concept that left me musing about my own life and the impact that I want to have on the growth of my children.
I am afraid that if someone asks me about this book in two years I'll probably be thinking did I really read that book? Despite some good writing this is ultimately a forgettable book.
It is an unusual list. There are a lot of books on the list that I hadn't read and more than I thought possible that I haven't even heard of. To say the least it is an intriguing list. I really enjoyed Colm Toibin's novel about Henry James called The Master and so I have been excited about digging into some of the authors on the list that I've never read before.
Alan Hollinghurst is a talented writer, lyrical, accomplished, and I hope capable of more than this book. Ultimately the problem I had with the book is that I never felt any connection with Edward Manners. In fact I barely knew much about him except that he was obsessed with sex, obsessed with himself, and about as shallow as a puddle of water on a concrete walkway. In the first part of the book Edward is consumed with this unrealistic passion for this seemingly unattainable 17 year old student named Luc. Between moments of anxiety about the object of his attraction he has several meaningless bouts of sex with men he has met under dodgy circumstances. I obtained some hope during the second part when Hollinghurst introduces the death of Edward's friend Ralph (Dawn)and he gives me more background on Edward and his life before he became a tutor. I have a glimmer of a person who once enjoyed poetry and wrote poetry before he became a man preoccupied with his next sexual encounter and little else. I believe that Hollinghurst was trying to present Edward as a tragic figure, but to accomplish this I would need to feel some sympathy for the character. Unfortunately I never mustered up enough interest in the character to ever feel any sympathy. In fact as the novel progresses I kept thinking Edward deserves much worse to happen to him.
Edward does have sex with Luc though not in the slow, seductive, romantic way he had daydreamed about through out the novel. Luc seduces him and afterwards Edward is confused as to how he actually feels about obtaining the object of his obsession.
"I tiptoed out for a drink of water and came back gulping from the glass like a child. I thought he might have vanished, it seemed foolish to let him out of my sight; but there he was, a goldish blur. I half-stumbled on his clothes, and crouched to rifle them-but what did they matter the boy himself was here? I found every fear answered and calmed by that luminous fact. He was lying in my bed, naked, sleeping-flat out. It was a triumph. Tears slipped down my face, I didn't really know why-it felt like gratitude, but also they were the tears that register some deep displacement, a bereavement sending up its sudden choking wave. It struck me I must be mourning everything that came before-it was the desolate undertow of success."
Okay, Hollinghurst can write, no doubt and even though I didn't particularly like this novel it certainly will not keep me from reading more books by him in the future. I think Hollinghurst wanted to write a novel about obsession and certainly did, but with 412 pages I felt he could have done much more. The slender, well conceived, well written landmark of literature, Lolita would have been a better framework for success.
On a quest to find Luc, Edward is riding in a car with Marcel, a friend of Luc and Marcel is excited. To him this is a grand adventure.
"Marcel was restless, eager, whisked away from his lessons on a quest for his beautiful and scandalous senior. He was pink faced at the privilege of it and chattered solemnly until my nervous silence, my curt demands for help with road-signs and turnings, affected him too, rather as a parent's misery seeps into a child and subdues it."
As a parent currently raising two teenagers that line hit me RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES. I know as I grow older, like most people, I am getting grumpier, less patient, more aware of my failings (insecurities) and feeling the weight of accumulated baggage from my interactions with colleagues and the human race at large. I do not want to lay any of that on the shoulders of my kids at any age certainly not now. Their exuberance and immaturity can be annoying and I know I have been guilty of throwing water on their youthful flames. The importance of reading is that even in a book I didn't appreciate as much as I expected I found a concept that left me musing about my own life and the impact that I want to have on the growth of my children.
I am afraid that if someone asks me about this book in two years I'll probably be thinking did I really read that book? Despite some good writing this is ultimately a forgettable book.
June 28, 2015
Alan Hollinghurst writes sublimely. I have gushed about his prose in my reviews of all his novels, and this one was no exception. It is also the last of his novels that I read (so Alan, please be writing a new novel, preferably one that is thematically along the lines of The Stranger’s Child).
In this novel, we meet Edward Manners (a name akin to Nick Guest from The Line of Beauty), who is an Englishman abroad, a tutor to two young men in a Flemish town, one of whom he falls hopelessly in love with. The novel centers on his obsession with young Luc but also, somehow, revolves around the life and art of an obscure artist, Edgar Orst, whose curator and admirer at the local museum is the father of Edward’s other pupil, Marcel. I say loosely because it takes hundreds of pages before this small link is established and it remained very loose indeed to me.
I occasionally thought of rating the novel four stars. The writing is consistently five stars – as in his other novels. Although Hollinghurst began his writing life as a poet, his writing isn’t heavily lyrical to me; he doesn’t pile on the adjectives or add unnecessary picturesque descriptions. Rather, he intensifies situations psychologically, adding depth and meaning and nuances, and that, to me, is his great skill. For instance:
Meeting them both was like meeting filmstars, their aura and beauty put weights on your tongue.
I didn’t see how he could be unaware of my feelings, which seemed to blunder and rebound around the room, hardly daring to fix upon their object.
My fury halted and trod air for a moment (…)
The beauty of his writing nonetheless failed to impart to me a story that I could fully immerse myself in, characters that I could wonder and care about. It was dull going at times; a good enough story stretched too thin over too many pages. (There was an interesting intermezzo in England in the middle where we got a lot of back story with more punch and heart, which had me turning the pages faster, though the real story was the rather more elaborate and long-winded frame story in Belgium).
As in most of his other novels, though not his latest, I felt there was too limited a focus on sex. Unlike Forster, whom Hollinghurst wrote his thesis on, he rarely focuses on other human relations than the main character and some love/sex object of his, which becomes a bit tedious. In his first four novels, there is a lot of hanging out in bars, picking up some guy and having some gratuitous sex. The love/sex angle is in itself not uninteresting, but his treatment of it becomes a bit repetitive. Because his prose is so gorgeous be would be able to explore any topic, or at least widen the thematic field, and I hope he will make the most of what I consider to be the best contemporary English prose around. Although his stories don’t linger with me, I am prepared to read anything Alan Hollinghurst writes.
In this novel, we meet Edward Manners (a name akin to Nick Guest from The Line of Beauty), who is an Englishman abroad, a tutor to two young men in a Flemish town, one of whom he falls hopelessly in love with. The novel centers on his obsession with young Luc but also, somehow, revolves around the life and art of an obscure artist, Edgar Orst, whose curator and admirer at the local museum is the father of Edward’s other pupil, Marcel. I say loosely because it takes hundreds of pages before this small link is established and it remained very loose indeed to me.
I occasionally thought of rating the novel four stars. The writing is consistently five stars – as in his other novels. Although Hollinghurst began his writing life as a poet, his writing isn’t heavily lyrical to me; he doesn’t pile on the adjectives or add unnecessary picturesque descriptions. Rather, he intensifies situations psychologically, adding depth and meaning and nuances, and that, to me, is his great skill. For instance:
Meeting them both was like meeting filmstars, their aura and beauty put weights on your tongue.
I didn’t see how he could be unaware of my feelings, which seemed to blunder and rebound around the room, hardly daring to fix upon their object.
My fury halted and trod air for a moment (…)
The beauty of his writing nonetheless failed to impart to me a story that I could fully immerse myself in, characters that I could wonder and care about. It was dull going at times; a good enough story stretched too thin over too many pages. (There was an interesting intermezzo in England in the middle where we got a lot of back story with more punch and heart, which had me turning the pages faster, though the real story was the rather more elaborate and long-winded frame story in Belgium).
As in most of his other novels, though not his latest, I felt there was too limited a focus on sex. Unlike Forster, whom Hollinghurst wrote his thesis on, he rarely focuses on other human relations than the main character and some love/sex object of his, which becomes a bit tedious. In his first four novels, there is a lot of hanging out in bars, picking up some guy and having some gratuitous sex. The love/sex angle is in itself not uninteresting, but his treatment of it becomes a bit repetitive. Because his prose is so gorgeous be would be able to explore any topic, or at least widen the thematic field, and I hope he will make the most of what I consider to be the best contemporary English prose around. Although his stories don’t linger with me, I am prepared to read anything Alan Hollinghurst writes.
December 17, 2015
I spent a month with this book. I loved it.
November 7, 2022
A bloated writer who takes himself very seriously. At times he writes like a castrated longshoreman. Since he was UK book review editor for years, insecure Brits like to burp about his "lyricism." It's really posturing rheumatism.
August 24, 2021
Well, I just wrote a scathing review of this book that was lost.
Summary:
HATED IT
Hated the narrator
Hated the sub plot about the Belgian artist
Hated the object of the narrator's affection
Hated that every man in the book, no matter how odd, turned out to be into having gay sex in the woods with anyone who walked by.
Hated that every woman in teh book was either in love with a gay man, stealing straight men from gay men or only around to nurse the gay men as they die from AIDS.
I loved Line of Beauty but hated Folding Star.
Summary:
HATED IT
Hated the narrator
Hated the sub plot about the Belgian artist
Hated the object of the narrator's affection
Hated that every man in the book, no matter how odd, turned out to be into having gay sex in the woods with anyone who walked by.
Hated that every woman in teh book was either in love with a gay man, stealing straight men from gay men or only around to nurse the gay men as they die from AIDS.
I loved Line of Beauty but hated Folding Star.
August 11, 2020
Though I couldn't get into the plot of this book, the prose was undeniably great. I would recommend this book to writers who want to learn how to create fantastic descriptive sentences.
March 11, 2014
If ever I am asked to name a writer of supreme talent working today, I can always fall back on Alan Hollinghurst. While there are weaknesses in the early books—a penchant for narcissistic, sex-obsessed protagonists, a glaring lack of developed female characters—these can be explained away as being part of the territory. Hollinghurst writes whereof he knows, and there is so much more in his books. Accusing him of retreading the same ground—boys, books, & buggery—is like accusing Proust of being all countesses, cocottes, & cuppa. However, the writing is consistently so good that one almost imagines a Hollinghurstian bargain wherein the Oxonian basso profundo trades in—what else?—his cock for a seemingly effortless style combining the elegance and social observation of Henry James, the vocabulary, synesthesia, and perversity of Nabokov, along with gay sensibility of Wilde and Waugh. Yes, Waugh. It has always been my opinion that Brideshead Revisited is not actually a Catholic tract, but rather one of the finest gay love stories in all of English literature. More about that some other time. Anyway, to the book at hand. Other reviews here draw the Lolita comparison, but the piece doesn't fit—only the theme of the desire and pursuit of a much younger lover, and we all know that Lolita is so much more than that. Our protagonist Edward Manners, being possessed of a superiority that comes with good looks and education, is quietly seductive and constantly on the make. He has come to Belgium in a sort of self-exile and takes digs eking out an existence as an English tutor to two boys, one of whom becomes his object of desire. In the meantime, he assists in the compilation of a catalogue raisonné of a third-rate Flemish painter with some skeletons in the closet and gets around a bit. All of this is intertwined and supplemented with auxiliary plotting, then woven together in a most enigmatic yet satisfying ending. For those just coming to Hollinghurst, I wouldn’t recommend this as a first—start with The Line of Beauty and then proceed to The Swimming Pool Library and then The Stranger’s Child, which is his fullest canvas yet. I can’t wait to see where he will go next.
January 11, 2019
The Folding Star shows off all of Alan Hollinghurst's many qualities as novelist.
The prose is brilliant, hypnotic and so crisply and beautifully-constructed.
The characters are flawed, and yet engaging, and he genuinely can write sex scenes that don't make your toes squirm.
I was surprised though to see one review refer to this as a sombre book. It certainly has its serious and dark moments, but I also found it very funny. The misadventures of protagonist Edward Manners are often comic.
But it also explores profound issues too, but never in a way that weighs the novel down.
At its heart is Edward's obsession with Luc - one of the students he's teaching during his time in Belgium. Edward is 33, Luc is 17. This may be an unwise obsession, and it does have consequences. but I like the fact that the novel is not judgemental. There are no life lessons, or pat morality here. Just people with all their flaws and hang-ups.
Edward's fixation on Luc definitely does not stop him pursuing other sexual encounters in the meantime though.
It's not all about hook-ups though. Manners also becomes interested in Flemish artist - Edgar Orst - as the father of his other pupil runs a museum dedicated to him. Orst is entirely fictional, but Hollinghurst is meticulous in the detail he uses to convince you he could be real.
One section also sees Manners return home to Britain for the funeral of a friend. If I had one criticism, I would say that section robs the novel of some momentum, but I understand why it's there. It has emotional heft, but I confess I was as keen as Edward to get back to Belgium.
When we return it is clear that Edward's obsession with Luc must reach a conclusion, but when it does the complications do not go away, and he finds himself on an impromptu road trip.
Hollinghurst is one of the greatest writers of our time; The Folding Star, one of his best novels. I was reluctant to leave the world he created behind.
The prose is brilliant, hypnotic and so crisply and beautifully-constructed.
The characters are flawed, and yet engaging, and he genuinely can write sex scenes that don't make your toes squirm.
I was surprised though to see one review refer to this as a sombre book. It certainly has its serious and dark moments, but I also found it very funny. The misadventures of protagonist Edward Manners are often comic.
But it also explores profound issues too, but never in a way that weighs the novel down.
At its heart is Edward's obsession with Luc - one of the students he's teaching during his time in Belgium. Edward is 33, Luc is 17. This may be an unwise obsession, and it does have consequences. but I like the fact that the novel is not judgemental. There are no life lessons, or pat morality here. Just people with all their flaws and hang-ups.
Edward's fixation on Luc definitely does not stop him pursuing other sexual encounters in the meantime though.
It's not all about hook-ups though. Manners also becomes interested in Flemish artist - Edgar Orst - as the father of his other pupil runs a museum dedicated to him. Orst is entirely fictional, but Hollinghurst is meticulous in the detail he uses to convince you he could be real.
One section also sees Manners return home to Britain for the funeral of a friend. If I had one criticism, I would say that section robs the novel of some momentum, but I understand why it's there. It has emotional heft, but I confess I was as keen as Edward to get back to Belgium.
When we return it is clear that Edward's obsession with Luc must reach a conclusion, but when it does the complications do not go away, and he finds himself on an impromptu road trip.
Hollinghurst is one of the greatest writers of our time; The Folding Star, one of his best novels. I was reluctant to leave the world he created behind.
April 2, 2022
Reading this book, I made a vow to never ever again read something about unrequited love. Is there any other topic so tedious? This book put me off Hollingshurst for years, and only after reading The Line of Beauty, was my opinion of his work rehabilitated.
Read
July 13, 2018I listened to three hours of sixteen, and I've stopped. The Folding Star still has Hollinghurst's wonderful writing that I love, and I don't mind at all lots of gay sex, and descriptions of the kind of lifestyle where men meet in the bushes at night, but I needed more of a story than the novel was giving me. I'm a bit sad, really.
April 12, 2017
Ugh guys, this book!! I don't know what to think!
On one hand, I absolutely adored it (the language was so beautiful, holy shit) but then there was stuff that bothered me. Parts of the story were brilliant and the ending was really good. I actually liked most characters in the book (for once).
The major thing of bother was the fact that a 33 year old TEACHER had a crush on his 17 year old pupil. I know student/teacher relationships are quite popular but they've always creeped me out (Luc is a child, for heaven's sake!).
Also, that sex scene. I normally hate sex scenes in books but damn, that was hot. (even though one of the participants was underage...and it was sort of dubcon too, wtf self).
This has been the worst review in the history of reviews. I'm sorry.
On one hand, I absolutely adored it (the language was so beautiful, holy shit) but then there was stuff that bothered me. Parts of the story were brilliant and the ending was really good. I actually liked most characters in the book (for once).
The major thing of bother was the fact that a 33 year old TEACHER had a crush on his 17 year old pupil. I know student/teacher relationships are quite popular but they've always creeped me out (Luc is a child, for heaven's sake!).
Also, that sex scene. I normally hate sex scenes in books but damn, that was hot. (even though one of the participants was underage...and it was sort of dubcon too, wtf self).
This has been the worst review in the history of reviews. I'm sorry.
August 31, 2022
Peak Hollinghurst, the pompously thirsty candour. Deliciously beguiling mix of lofty and raunchy blasé; afternoon tea with soft porn and biscuits.
The refinement of the prose is like if Waugh wrote erotica. Beautifully languid, inherently haughty, and driven by exceeding contemplativeness. The snobbish softness and insouciant candidness together make for a distinctly unique flavour.
Samuel West's narration is perfectly complementary to the manner - enhancing it even: gentle and couth, not unlike Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder.
The refinement of the prose is like if Waugh wrote erotica. Beautifully languid, inherently haughty, and driven by exceeding contemplativeness. The snobbish softness and insouciant candidness together make for a distinctly unique flavour.
Samuel West's narration is perfectly complementary to the manner - enhancing it even: gentle and couth, not unlike Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder.
August 18, 2008
It's always the same with Alan Hollinghurst: attractive young man is fancied by less attractive gay man, agony and beauty ensue. What a great format - if you're a less attractive gay man. God only knows why straight people might read this.
Well written, though, and perfectly paced.
Well written, though, and perfectly paced.
December 30, 2016
Unrequited love trumps every other human emotion to act as the most fertile source of timeless literature. It provokes the mind in myriad ways to push the boundaries of articulation and express its pain in delectable ways. Most of the books I’ve admired so far are about one distressing situation or the other. It may be so because pain is more suitable for reading than pleasure - it is substantial and life-affecting in a way that pleasure can only aspire to be. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lolita, and Death in Venice are but a few testaments that prove what unrequited love has the preternatural ability to beget.
So I could hardly contain my excitement when I found that The Folding Star was about “an unfulfillable, annihilating desire”. Having read the Booker Prize-winning Line of Beauty, I knew what Hollinghurst was capable of (it beat Cloud Atlas to win the Booker) and my expectations were rather steep.
The Folding Star is populated with the usual Hollinghurst cast of 95% gay men, 4% straight men and one or two women. If you expected this book to provide any kind of insight into the 90’s European gay culture, you’d be a bit bewildered to notice that almost every character in the book is promiscuous, unreliable and sex-crazed. Having read Alan’s previous books, I had the presentiment that I wouldn’t like his hero very much and now I can confidently say that Hollinghurst can never, ever write a hero that I would even come close to accept neutrally. In this case it is Edward Manners – a boring, tedious, middle-aged, perverse, narcissistic, unfaithful, cowardly, hypocritical English man with the emotional range of a teaspoon and who is unbelievably lucky when it comes to sex. And his object of affection is a 17-year old rich kid named Luc whose mother hires him to be his English teacher.
Bored with his English town named “Rough Common” south of London where he has managed to screw more than his share of men, Edward jumps at the opportunity to teach a handsome kid in Belgium. The story begins with Edward waiting at a tram station and we travel along with him into the deep recesses of the Flemish city as it unfolds. Description of architecture and paintings constitute a significant share of the book.
The prose is resplendent and Hollinghurst has a way with words that most writers would kill for. But I wasn’t able to enjoy the book mainly because I loathed Edward in a way that I’ve loathed very few characters before. Ed’s supposed to be in love with Luc and he obsesses after him with monstrous devotion. But it is plain as day that he is not capable of any human emotion except lust and his extremely sordid sexual fantasies involving Luc are vehemently pornographic in a way that you would never dare associate with someone you love. To top it all, he seems to suffer from an extreme case of lookism and it’s disgusting to see the way he treats his own lovers because they are not as good-looking as he wants them to be. Also, the side-track involving a fictional Belgian painter named Edgar Orst was frankly unnecessary and made the book which was already suffering from a serious lack of interesting events all the more taxing. It seems to be thrust forcefully upon the narrative just so that there would be something to draw a parallel from.
An amazing book spun out of delicious prose and frequently startling insights on life with a purely despicable hero right in the middle. He spoils all the fun. The Folding star has its share of good – even great things and I didn’t mean to be so critical about it (in fact I didn't even mean to review it, but I just couldn't resist ranting); but only the characters would live with us long after finishing any book and I’d choose to rather forget that I read this book.
So I could hardly contain my excitement when I found that The Folding Star was about “an unfulfillable, annihilating desire”. Having read the Booker Prize-winning Line of Beauty, I knew what Hollinghurst was capable of (it beat Cloud Atlas to win the Booker) and my expectations were rather steep.
The Folding Star is populated with the usual Hollinghurst cast of 95% gay men, 4% straight men and one or two women. If you expected this book to provide any kind of insight into the 90’s European gay culture, you’d be a bit bewildered to notice that almost every character in the book is promiscuous, unreliable and sex-crazed. Having read Alan’s previous books, I had the presentiment that I wouldn’t like his hero very much and now I can confidently say that Hollinghurst can never, ever write a hero that I would even come close to accept neutrally. In this case it is Edward Manners – a boring, tedious, middle-aged, perverse, narcissistic, unfaithful, cowardly, hypocritical English man with the emotional range of a teaspoon and who is unbelievably lucky when it comes to sex. And his object of affection is a 17-year old rich kid named Luc whose mother hires him to be his English teacher.
Bored with his English town named “Rough Common” south of London where he has managed to screw more than his share of men, Edward jumps at the opportunity to teach a handsome kid in Belgium. The story begins with Edward waiting at a tram station and we travel along with him into the deep recesses of the Flemish city as it unfolds. Description of architecture and paintings constitute a significant share of the book.
The prose is resplendent and Hollinghurst has a way with words that most writers would kill for. But I wasn’t able to enjoy the book mainly because I loathed Edward in a way that I’ve loathed very few characters before. Ed’s supposed to be in love with Luc and he obsesses after him with monstrous devotion. But it is plain as day that he is not capable of any human emotion except lust and his extremely sordid sexual fantasies involving Luc are vehemently pornographic in a way that you would never dare associate with someone you love. To top it all, he seems to suffer from an extreme case of lookism and it’s disgusting to see the way he treats his own lovers because they are not as good-looking as he wants them to be. Also, the side-track involving a fictional Belgian painter named Edgar Orst was frankly unnecessary and made the book which was already suffering from a serious lack of interesting events all the more taxing. It seems to be thrust forcefully upon the narrative just so that there would be something to draw a parallel from.
An amazing book spun out of delicious prose and frequently startling insights on life with a purely despicable hero right in the middle. He spoils all the fun. The Folding star has its share of good – even great things and I didn’t mean to be so critical about it (in fact I didn't even mean to review it, but I just couldn't resist ranting); but only the characters would live with us long after finishing any book and I’d choose to rather forget that I read this book.
November 22, 2014
Hollinghurst is a joy to read. His prose is lyrical, learned, 'literary'—superlatives fail me. It's worth reading aloud. And, he manages this without muddling meaning, remaining eloquent. His 2nd novel, The Folding Star fulfills his promise. He is certainly a favorite author. I read him with All of Wiki and OED iOS apps which adds to the enjoyment.
This novel is about a 30 something Englishmen obsessing and lusting about his 17 y/o Belgian student he's teaching English. I was constantly thinling about Death in Venice while reading Hollinghurst's novel. It's about how yearning about a beautiful object can lead to obsession, and nearly take over own's life. I've been there. I suspect many have. Edward's Obsession with Luc is contrasted with that of a dead artist, Orst, who was obsessed with his model, whom he painted repetitively. Edward ends up working for curator of Orst's museum and biographer Paul. There is an almost subliminal suggestion of yearning of Paul for Edward. The relationships are
What do you think happened to Luc?
9 of 10 stars
This novel is about a 30 something Englishmen obsessing and lusting about his 17 y/o Belgian student he's teaching English. I was constantly thinling about Death in Venice while reading Hollinghurst's novel. It's about how yearning about a beautiful object can lead to obsession, and nearly take over own's life. I've been there. I suspect many have. Edward's Obsession with Luc is contrasted with that of a dead artist, Orst, who was obsessed with his model, whom he painted repetitively. Edward ends up working for curator of Orst's museum and biographer Paul. There is an almost subliminal suggestion of yearning of Paul for Edward. The relationships are
Edward::LucThis is all set up as a multifaceted tragedy, and perhaps it is. But the novel is full of humor, obscure similes and puns which can be LOL moments. Life will go on as before for most of the characters. The tragedy is perhaps the effect on Luc. The 'denouement' is the last paragraph and what happens to Luc is left to the reader. I prefer to believe Luc flies to freedom from his dysfunctional life, to discover himself. I am an eternal optimist, obsess for Luc too and want what's best for him. Would I have succumbed?
Paul::Orst
Orst::His model
Paul::Edward
Luc::?? perhaps clarity
What do you think happened to Luc?
9 of 10 stars
July 5, 2010
Very hard to decide how to rate this novel - there were moments of intense frustration when I wanted to give up on it because Hollinghurst got so bogged down in details that didn't seem to further the plot (the history of Edgar Orst, for instance), then there would be a passage of such transcendent brilliance that I just had to give it another chance.
Parts of it were wonderful, particularly those focusing on Edward's obsessive behaviour, and the ending, while unresolved, offered up some startling new information, making me rethink much of what had gone before.
I don't know if I can recommend this novel - if you loved The Swimming Pool Library or have a high tolerence for overly intellectual highbrow lit then you might enjoy it; then again, you might think, as I did, that it would have benefitted from being edited into a tighter, shorter novel.
Parts of it were wonderful, particularly those focusing on Edward's obsessive behaviour, and the ending, while unresolved, offered up some startling new information, making me rethink much of what had gone before.
I don't know if I can recommend this novel - if you loved The Swimming Pool Library or have a high tolerence for overly intellectual highbrow lit then you might enjoy it; then again, you might think, as I did, that it would have benefitted from being edited into a tighter, shorter novel.
Read
June 6, 2012The majority of this book is a combined homage to Bruges-la-Morte and Death in Venice, and didn't especially grab me precisely because it was so much in their shadow - though as ever with Hollinghurst it is enlivened by some marvelous descriptions of cocks, at once literary, filthy and instantly evocative of the members in question. But the middle section, in which the protagonist returns to the small southern town where he grew up for the funeral of his first love, is astonishing - a perfect picture of the anxiety of first love and the pain of lost time. It's almost a self-contained novella, and I think the best thing he's ever done.
February 27, 2012
Dreary mash-up of Racine ("Andromaque"), Proust ("In Search of Lost Time"), Mann ("Death in Venice"), and Nabokov ("Lolita"). Unlike Racine, there's no tragedy here because there's no possibility of a fall from the gutter. Reads as if it were a tale told at the beginning of the 20th century rather than the end, arcane and stilted. It's masturbatory: the narrator never considers anything but his own wants, needs, and pleasures. He's about as deep as dew. Disappointing and tiresome.
March 30, 2008
Okay, I just re-read The Folding Star after coming across a review that interpreted the ending entirely differently than I did. Can anyone share with me what they thought happened to Luc?
July 18, 2018
3.5. read almost like a pornhub parody of a hollinghurst novel, though the writing was splendid as always and the ending was rich. definitely could have used less porn.
February 4, 2014
It is impossible to review this novel without at least some comparison to Alan Hollinghurst's other novels. Since I'm going to do that anyway, I will state that this is in my opinion the best written and most memorable of his novels so far.
The Folding Star scores low ratings in reviews for two things: its flawed characters and its divergence from the main plotline. Both factors are characteristics of Hollinghurst's writing.
I scored the novel highly because of the characters. With today's self-gratifying novel, full of characters that surmount their inner demons and that, in so doing, satisfy the reader's search for some self-redemption, we forget that real people aren't like that. The world is full of flawed people, of hypocritical, selfish, self-centred people, and most of these people are not remotely interested in a good vs evil quest. Alan Hollinghurst's characters embody this. They are all self-centred in their own way.
The novel is written in the third person focused perspective, and as such we get sufficient distance that Edward, the protagonist, can poke gentle fun and irony at himself, but at the same time, through narrator's bias, the world that comes through is very much the world that Edward sees. This is a good choice to portray the story of his obsession with his pupil, and its ridiculous escalation into risks taken all for the sake of satisfying this obsession. Hollinghurst isn't trying to be impartial, nor is he condoning anything here. He's simply telling the reader the story through Edward's eyes. He'd write a psychopath beautifully, although that's not his avenue - but anyway, I digress.
Edward is not your perfect hero who will battle evil and triumph at the end of the novel. So if that's what you were looking for, stop right here.
All the characters are very real and three-dimensional, and in fact if you pay close attention to everything that goes on, you can actually tease out all the hidden stories within the story long before Hollinghurst reveals anything - and you can therefore work out the significance of the ending. Edward, completely blinded, notes none of this, so it will escape the reader's notice, too, but nonetheless it is all there, and it is this which makes this novel perfect: the fact that when you go back and read between the lines, you realise that there is a whole other story there.
What really detracts from the story is the side story that comes in about Orst. Yes, I understand that the parallel was the whole point, but nonetheless the plot really stagnated there. This is a problem that I have found in all of Alan Hollinhurst's novels so far. You can help but want to chop out these parts, and watch the resulting thing flow flawlessly. I would love to see a Hollinghurst novel where there isn't an escapade into somebody else's story because, frankly, with how tightly the web is woven about the protagonist, the reader cares nothing for the side story.
All in all, a fantastic story from an incredibly gifted writer. May I point out that the choice of third person focused narrative works incredibly - far better than the first person narrative of the preceding novel, where Hollinghurst was less able to slip in little hints that reveal the undercurrents in the story. There is no shockingly original plot idea here. But there is a shockingly original crafting here. For the sake of fine literature, this is a book to be read.
And I trust that by now readers know that Hollinghurst's books are full of explicit sex.
The Folding Star scores low ratings in reviews for two things: its flawed characters and its divergence from the main plotline. Both factors are characteristics of Hollinghurst's writing.
I scored the novel highly because of the characters. With today's self-gratifying novel, full of characters that surmount their inner demons and that, in so doing, satisfy the reader's search for some self-redemption, we forget that real people aren't like that. The world is full of flawed people, of hypocritical, selfish, self-centred people, and most of these people are not remotely interested in a good vs evil quest. Alan Hollinghurst's characters embody this. They are all self-centred in their own way.
The novel is written in the third person focused perspective, and as such we get sufficient distance that Edward, the protagonist, can poke gentle fun and irony at himself, but at the same time, through narrator's bias, the world that comes through is very much the world that Edward sees. This is a good choice to portray the story of his obsession with his pupil, and its ridiculous escalation into risks taken all for the sake of satisfying this obsession. Hollinghurst isn't trying to be impartial, nor is he condoning anything here. He's simply telling the reader the story through Edward's eyes. He'd write a psychopath beautifully, although that's not his avenue - but anyway, I digress.
Edward is not your perfect hero who will battle evil and triumph at the end of the novel. So if that's what you were looking for, stop right here.
All the characters are very real and three-dimensional, and in fact if you pay close attention to everything that goes on, you can actually tease out all the hidden stories within the story long before Hollinghurst reveals anything - and you can therefore work out the significance of the ending. Edward, completely blinded, notes none of this, so it will escape the reader's notice, too, but nonetheless it is all there, and it is this which makes this novel perfect: the fact that when you go back and read between the lines, you realise that there is a whole other story there.
What really detracts from the story is the side story that comes in about Orst. Yes, I understand that the parallel was the whole point, but nonetheless the plot really stagnated there. This is a problem that I have found in all of Alan Hollinhurst's novels so far. You can help but want to chop out these parts, and watch the resulting thing flow flawlessly. I would love to see a Hollinghurst novel where there isn't an escapade into somebody else's story because, frankly, with how tightly the web is woven about the protagonist, the reader cares nothing for the side story.
All in all, a fantastic story from an incredibly gifted writer. May I point out that the choice of third person focused narrative works incredibly - far better than the first person narrative of the preceding novel, where Hollinghurst was less able to slip in little hints that reveal the undercurrents in the story. There is no shockingly original plot idea here. But there is a shockingly original crafting here. For the sake of fine literature, this is a book to be read.
And I trust that by now readers know that Hollinghurst's books are full of explicit sex.
May 4, 2020
Another beautifully written work from Hollinghurst!
This was one of his earlier novels, I believe the second to come out. That seems to get reflected in the scope of the narrative. His later works, like the Booker-winning Line of Beauty had more historic context and tried to do more within the narrative structure. Here the vision feels a little more limited and perhaps makes it more intimate. You get to see the journey of a particular character along with some historic parallels to a fairly famous painter, Orst.
There is a touch of Lolita here - we have an older man lusting after someone who is considerably younger and is a pupil too. Somehow it doesn't feel as sinful though, maybe because the Lolita here is seventeen and seems in control of his desire. It also has to do with the fact that it is an unrequited love that doesn't translate into any sort of action, almost throughout the book. The yearning is internalised and that makes the journey more relatable. Perhaps it has to do with it being a homosexual relation too - I don't know why that makes it feel more acceptable!
Like his every work I've read so far, the setting of this book too is firmly in the realm of gay men. The atmospherics of everything from a gay bar to a cruising spot is perfectly captured. The web of almost everyone incestuously sleeping with everyone is also captured well - in a town with a limited number of gay men, it is inevitable that this happens. This is perhaps where Hollinghurst excels most. He manages to convey the bevy of emotions that go into being gay through his characters. There is an unspoken exploration of kink, internalised homophobia, AIDS and how all that contribute in myriad ways to the actions of the characters.
I also loved the sudden change in the narrative that comes when Manners has to go back to his hometown for a funeral. It gives us so much more context and insight into the character and his actions start to make more sense. This is a protagonist that you hate when you begin the novel - he is a thirty year old who infuriatingly acts like he is fifteen. But your sympathy for the character grows especially at this interlude to England and you being to understand and empathise with him more.
Definitely looking forward to more from Hollinghurst!
This was one of his earlier novels, I believe the second to come out. That seems to get reflected in the scope of the narrative. His later works, like the Booker-winning Line of Beauty had more historic context and tried to do more within the narrative structure. Here the vision feels a little more limited and perhaps makes it more intimate. You get to see the journey of a particular character along with some historic parallels to a fairly famous painter, Orst.
There is a touch of Lolita here - we have an older man lusting after someone who is considerably younger and is a pupil too. Somehow it doesn't feel as sinful though, maybe because the Lolita here is seventeen and seems in control of his desire. It also has to do with the fact that it is an unrequited love that doesn't translate into any sort of action, almost throughout the book. The yearning is internalised and that makes the journey more relatable. Perhaps it has to do with it being a homosexual relation too - I don't know why that makes it feel more acceptable!
Like his every work I've read so far, the setting of this book too is firmly in the realm of gay men. The atmospherics of everything from a gay bar to a cruising spot is perfectly captured. The web of almost everyone incestuously sleeping with everyone is also captured well - in a town with a limited number of gay men, it is inevitable that this happens. This is perhaps where Hollinghurst excels most. He manages to convey the bevy of emotions that go into being gay through his characters. There is an unspoken exploration of kink, internalised homophobia, AIDS and how all that contribute in myriad ways to the actions of the characters.
I also loved the sudden change in the narrative that comes when Manners has to go back to his hometown for a funeral. It gives us so much more context and insight into the character and his actions start to make more sense. This is a protagonist that you hate when you begin the novel - he is a thirty year old who infuriatingly acts like he is fifteen. But your sympathy for the character grows especially at this interlude to England and you being to understand and empathise with him more.
Definitely looking forward to more from Hollinghurst!
April 10, 2015
Beautiful. The book jacket suggests this novel could be read as a "homosexual Lolita," and that's exactly what I thought when I finished. This was brilliant. To me, Hollinghurst is one of the best contemporary writers. His writing is so intricate, his stories so layered, and his characters so complex.
I love that he writes things like this:
"Behind them the silhouettes of pines and poplars were reflected and the sunset opened canyons of pink and ultramarine in the pond's muddy depths" (247).
And: "It was hateful of me, but I began to be irritated by the ubiquitous power of the unsaid, and by the generous little enactment of Helene's gratitude, the stooping hug, that said for them the crisis was over - not still waiting to happen, somewhere along the invisible roads" (388).
…and I love that he makes me feel like I've temporarily lived elsewhere. Thank you, Mr. Hollinghurst.
I love that he writes things like this:
"Behind them the silhouettes of pines and poplars were reflected and the sunset opened canyons of pink and ultramarine in the pond's muddy depths" (247).
And: "It was hateful of me, but I began to be irritated by the ubiquitous power of the unsaid, and by the generous little enactment of Helene's gratitude, the stooping hug, that said for them the crisis was over - not still waiting to happen, somewhere along the invisible roads" (388).
…and I love that he makes me feel like I've temporarily lived elsewhere. Thank you, Mr. Hollinghurst.
November 29, 2008
I'm not normally giving to skim-reading, but this tedious, incoherent, and over-long novel forced me into it. The tale of an English teacher’s obsession w/17-yo student, _The Folding Star_ is nasty-minded and small; a real waste of time & major disappointment from an author who knows better.
August 8, 2017
This took me longer to read because it gave me a boner the whole time.
June 29, 2023
Hollinghurst has been on my to-read list for a long time. I have heard/read about him so much while browsing through gay literature catalogues and lists. I am glad I found this second-hand copy on a trip last year. In short, I loved this book! It begins with 32-year old Edward, an English teacher who's come to a quaint Belgian village/town during the holidays to teach two young boys. There is Marcel; an asthmatic teenager whose father runs a museum dedicated to a famous local painter. Edward is quite taken to the painter's life and spends quality time learning about the secrets Marcel's father keeps about the personal life of the painter. When he's not doing that, he spends time obsessing over his other student. The 17-year old, Luc, the young boy he fantasies about all day and night. But Edward is hindered by the presence of Luc's two friends. And to that the gays of the town hankering around Edward for his English cock. It's a story that’s rich in all its aspects. From the heightened drama set in an eerie European town like you find in Joanne Harris's books, to swoon-worthy sexual encounters like that of Garth Greenwell's stories. There is a lot going on. While Edward is sad about his single life, there are men like Matt, Cherif, Gerard etc entertaining him with sex throughout his days as he keeps imagining making love to his student. Yes, it does bring Nabokov's 'Lolita' to mind, what with the first person narration from the elder man's point of view. However, there is something unforgiving about Hollinghurst's story. Here, with two male bodies the crisis of consent and age can definitely set the reader at the edge. Is it okay? Is it not wrong? Is it not paedophilia if the boy is even one year younger from legal maturity? These are definitely questions worth asking but then the turn the novel takes subverts the Humbert Humbert-Dolores plot. It does make for a refreshing perspective, indeed. The writing and its atmospheric quality really had me hooked. It took time, yes, for it to grow on me but once it did; there was no stopping. It makes me want to quickly buy all of Hollinghurst's novels and gulp them. What truly stood out for me was the life of a gay man the author tried to map out. The sadness, its loneliness, the burst of attention, the obsession with cocks and balls, the thing with release and the need to be protected in a man's arms; it certainly marked the desires simmering in every gay man's consciousness. A strong strong recommendation.
October 16, 2020
Ο Έντουαρντ στα 30 του αποφασίζει να φύγει από την Αγγλία και να ζήσει σε μία Βέλγικη πόλη. Στο επάγγελμα είναι καθηγητής Αγγλικών και ερχόμ��νος στο νέο μέρος έχει να αναλάβει δυο μαθητές τον Μαρσέλ και τον Λουκ. Το παρουσιαστικό του Λουκ τον διεγείρει ερωτικά και περιπέφτει σ' ένα αμαρτωλό πάθος για τον μικρό μαθητή του. Η ερωτική του επιθυμία τον καλεί να αναπληρώσει το κενό του σε άλλες αγκαλιές.
Ο Άλαν Χολινγκχερστ δημιούργησε ένα άρτιο μυθιστόρημα που το "έντυσε" με εξαιρετικές περιγραφές τοπίων και στόχευσε πολύ στην ψυχοσύνθεση των προσώπων. Βασικό θέμα του είναι η μοναξιά στον έρωτα και τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις. Καταφέρνει με την συγκλονιστική γραφή του να σε κάνει μέρος μίας ιστορίας ή καταστάσεων και σκέψεων που μπορεί να τα έχεις ζήσει και εσύ. Αν και είναι ένα ερωτικό μυθιστόρημα δεν είναι καθόλου πρόστυχο ούτε ευτελές. Με παρέσυρε η γραφή του "στα σκοτεινά μονοπάτια" που κάνει ο ανθρώπινος νους για να βρει την ευτυχία.
Αναζητήστε το και καλή ανάγνωση.
Ο Άλαν Χολινγκχερστ δημιούργησε ένα άρτιο μυθιστόρημα που το "έντυσε" με εξαιρετικές περιγραφές τοπίων και στόχευσε πολύ στην ψυχοσύνθεση των προσώπων. Βασικό θέμα του είναι η μοναξιά στον έρωτα και τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις. Καταφέρνει με την συγκλονιστική γραφή του να σε κάνει μέρος μίας ιστορίας ή καταστάσεων και σκέψεων που μπορεί να τα έχεις ζήσει και εσύ. Αν και είναι ένα ερωτικό μυθιστόρημα δεν είναι καθόλου πρόστυχο ούτε ευτελές. Με παρέσυρε η γραφή του "στα σκοτεινά μονοπάτια" που κάνει ο ανθρώπινος νους για να βρει την ευτυχία.
Αναζητήστε το και καλή ανάγνωση.
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