The Line of Beauty (Magill’s Literary Annual 2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Alan Hollinghurst
- First Published: 2004
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 1983-1987
- Setting: London
- Principal Characters: Nick Guest, Toby Fedden, Catherine Fedden, Gerald Fedden, Wani Ouradi
- Genres: Long fiction, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: Gay men, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Middle classes, Class consciousness, 1980’s, England or English people, Consumers or consumer rights, AIDS
- Locales: London, England
With its title drawn from William Hogarth's famous treatise The Analysis of Beauty (1753), Alan Hollinghurst's novel The Line of Beauty is a meditative set of variations on style: literary, personal, political, sexual, cultural, artistic, architectural. Although it may or may not be the author's best novel, The Line of Beauty is certainly his most ambitious and something of a capstone. It completes the loosely connected quartet of novels—with The Swimming-Pool Library (1988), The Folding Star (1994), and The Spell (1998)—that examine gay...
[The entire page is 2110 words long]
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