Unfortunately, despite having read 53% of this immensely overlong tome, I’m not at all sure if it’s about anything much at all. You ain't seen nothing yet. It even results in a new gay relationship. In one sense, The Stranger's Child is about trying to capture the past, with the story of a poet and his relationships woven into the different strands of the book. Please try again. For that I am eternally grateful. Rich with Hollinghurst's signature gifts - haunting sensuality, delicious wit and exquisite lyricism - The Stranger's Child is a tour de force: a masterly novel about the lingering power of desire, how the heart creates its own history, and how legends are made. So my five-star rating is solely for his penmanship (though he doesn't employ synonyms for the word "said". Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? And it has ended at the top of my 2011 Best Of list just in the. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. This review may contain more information about the plot than you want to know. In "The Wizard of Oz," Dorothy, perplexed by the sudden appearances and disappearances of characters into thin air, exclaims (I paraphrase): "Gosh. (But I may, next up is the winner, “The Sense of a Ending.”) Hollinghurst has won the award before, but his latest effort is an incredible story of love, loyalty, and the art of poetry (and much, much more). I made it to the end with a lot of page skimming. [Cecil's missing letters remain lost - perhaps forever. While I was quick to deliver a three-star rating to this novel, I could consider dropping another star. Very clever. Rich with Hollinghurst's signature gifts—haunting sensuality, delicious wit and exquisite lyricism—The Stranger's Child is a tour de force: a masterly novel about the lingering power of desire, how the heart creates its own history, and how legends are made. I've always been hesitant of contemporary literature for this exact reason: it's too derivative. The Stranger’s Child In the late summer of 1913 the young poet Cecil Valance comes to stay at ‘Two Acres’, the home of his close Cambridge friend George Sawle, and of his sister, Daphne. It rescued me from lapsing into a boredom induced coma while sitting in a hilux in a field in the middle of the Cheshire countryside. Original price of $27.95 intact. Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. Hollinghurst's writing is so precise. A worthy but at times stodgy read from Hollinghurst, but much, much better than The Line of Beauty. A novel that you don't want to finish because then you no longer have connection with the extraordinary people that inhabit Hollinghurst's world. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 24, 2013. In The Stranger’s Child, the Jewishness of the press photographer Jerry Goldblatt (in the section of the book set in 1926) is deployed precisely to illustrate the prejudicial attitudes of Dudley Valance, who speaks to him “in a harsh tone” and repeats his name in a way that strikes Dudley’s wife Daphne (through whose eyes this chapter is seen) as pointedly unpleasant. Now Alan … For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions. Signed by Author(s). The Stranger's Child Alan HollinghurstPicador, 576pp, £20If 2004 was the "Year of Henry James", as David Lodge has argued, 2011 is shaping up to be the Year of Henry James's Friends. You then become the stranger looking in but denied a part after connections are made and revealed to you. Divided into five sections, Alan Hollinghurst’s narrative each time focuses on … A double Goodreads Choice Award winner... From the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The Line of Beauty: a magnificent, century-spanning saga about a love triangle that spawns a myth, and a family mystery, across generations. “There was the noise itself, which he thought of vaguely as the noise of classical music, sameish and rhetorical, full of feelings people surely never had”, “she kept sliding down, in small half-willing surrenders, till she was a heap, with the book held tiringly above her face.”, Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Roman (2013), National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Fiction (2011), Galaxy National Book Award for Waterstone's UK Author of the Year (2011), International Dublin Literary Award Nominee (2013), See 1 question about The Stranger's Child…, Deferred Gratification: 2011's Most Eagerly Awaited New Books, Daniel Mendelsohn's review of the novel in the NYRB, SOLVED. Does this book contain inappropriate content? I also compiled a sort of 'family tree' of the characters and then marked the relationships between then in red - the result is a veritable spiders web of connections spanning the decades. It started out as some sort of Wuthering Heights spin-off, but with a gay twist to it. Throughout the twentieth century people start to take an interest in the poet, and even a biography is being set up. In truth, the lyrical beauty of his flawless writing almost negates the need for a story. Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2012. I'm not sure what to think of this book. The Stranger’s Child is a comedy of manners, exuberantly funny, as well as a literary mystery, filled with elegant and erudite tips of the author’s hat to other writers—not just Tennyson, [Rupert] Brooke, but E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Aldous Huxley and many more. The sense of the ever-present collision between past and present is perhaps, the over-riding message to take from the story, along with the obsession we sometimes have to nail down events that are fleeting in nature. Author Casey McQuiston took the romance world by storm with her 2019 debut, Red, White & Royal Blue. This was long-listed for the 2011 Booker Prize, and why it didn’t get on the short list and then win, I won’t know. Early 20th century based novel. The relationships between the characters start to echo the relationships between the nineteenth century characters at the beginning of the novel. This is a novel of superb observation, of how the past is interpreted across generations. The Stranger’s Child (2011), a novel by English poet and novelist Alan Hollinghurst, follows amateur poet Cecil Valance, whose life and tragic death in combat during World War I are modeled after the real-life figure Rupert Brooke. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. After the archetypal. Starts slow, gets more promising in the middle, but then disappointing. What better to read over the Jubilee' --The Times This was long-listed for the 2011 Booker Prize, and why it didn’t get on the short list and then win, I won’t know. I read large chunks more than once because the writing is breathtaking, but leisurely: I wanted to capture the craft and jot down many quotes (see the end of this for a long selection). The Stranger's Child is a remarkable, unmissable achievement, written with the calm authority of an author who could turn his literary gifts to just about anything. Once again his writing exhibits all the heightened sensory awareness and self-conscious eroticism of an extended seduction. You ain't seen nothing yet. Dorothy, honey, wait until you read "The Stranger's Child." Something went wrong. Like 'The Line of Beauty', it took me a while to get into the rhythm of the narrative of 'The Stranger's Child'. Unable to add item to List. Perhaps my biggest issue with this novel is that I did enjoy it...when Forster wrote it nearly a century ago in "Maurice" and then when Waugh wrote it in "Brideshead". A perfect copy, SIGNED. In a perverse delectation of delay I waited until the US release of, Last week I read Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child. I loved this, everything about this. His understanding of the emotional landscape is complete. (Hey don't diss the hilux, that car is my baby). Please try your request again later. Menu Alan Hollinghurst: The Stranger's Child (2011) 06 July 2011 on Books, poetry, Hollinghurst, gay, Tennyson, Waugh, class. Yet the precision is in service to his storytelling and never overwhelms it. In 2004 Alan Hollinghurst made literary headlines by winning the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Line of Beauty. Picador; Main Market Ed. To see what your friends thought of this book, [ This is a wonderful story, the best of Hollinghurst's books in my view. Gay relationships, inevitably, form a large part of the story, and some of the chapters could be prescribed for sleep disorders they are that tedious, but overall this is a worthwhile, if slightly over-long novel. A National Book Critics Award finalist from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty and The Sparsholt Affair: a magnificent, century-spanning saga about a love triangle that spawns a myth, and a family mystery, across generations. “The Stranger’s Child” is especially concerned — sometimes gravely, sometimes comically — with the effects of gay liberation on literary biography. The interesting thing lies in the way that we don't recognize what is going on during those skips. His specialty is human motivations and he seems to live inside each character equally, whether they are male, female, old, young, straight, gay. Please try again. Perhaps my biggest issue with this novel is that I did enjoy it...when Forster wrote it nearly a century ago in "Maurice" and then when Waugh wrote it in "Brideshead". In his review of Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel The Stranger’s Child [NYR, November 10], Daniel Mendelsohn writes as follows:. About the Author ALAN HOLLINGHURST is the author of the novels The Stranger's Child, The Swimming-Pool Library, The Folding Star, The Spell, and The Line of Beauty, which won the Man Booker Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Welcome back. Rich with Hollinghurst's signature gifts—haunting sensuality, delicious wit and exquisite lyricism— The Stranger's Child is a tour de force: a masterly novel about the lingering power of desire, how the heart creates its own history, and how legends are made. What was I doing sitting in a field in such an environmentally unfriendly vehicle? Find all the books, read about the author, and more. And although that might have its merits, it just didn't appeal to me. Best of all, his male characters aren't spending most of the novel having sex with each other at the drop of a hat. The Stranger’s Child Alan Hollinghurst. It started out as some sort of Wuthering Heights spin-off, but with a gay twist to it. Romantic life tale Read 3-4 years ago. And I’m not enthusiastic enough to read the other 47% in the hopes of finding out. --This text refers to an alternate. And boy, what an ordeal this has been. The Stranger's Child begins in 1913, with the handsome aristocratic Cambridge student and poet Cecil Valance visiting his college friend Geo In every phrase he finds the perfect word. The repetition of "he said/she said" dialogue tags are hard to ignore). Set in Thatcher’s 1980’s Britain it courted mild controversy with its depictions of cocaine abuse and graphic gay sex. The Stranger’s Child is, among many other things, a wonderfully comic novel. This was a really interesting story because it deals with the same woman through different periods of her life. And the one character whose memory was threaded through the book became someone else from the real man. Imogen Brown is a normal 16 year old girl. It is a powerful and utterly absorbing modern classic. ALAN HOLLINGHURST is the author of the novels The Stranger's Child, The Swimming-Pool Library, The Folding Star, The Spell, and The Line of Beauty, which won the Man Booker Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Much of the turn-of-the-century English literature aesthetic over saturates this novel, and while I do very much enjoy that setting, Hollinghurst's creativity was lacking. It kills me to give two stars to a book that took me the better part of a week to read, that has all the trappings of a book I would enjoy, and that will probably go on to win a mantel of literary awards. Hollinghurst is fifty and he's still writing about boys and their capacity for stratospheric ejaculation. The Stranger’s Child is a rich and rewarding novel, shot through with humour and wit. Do we as readers of the novel know Cecil more accurately than George, Daphne, Dudley - even Sebastian Stokes? Folding Star; The Swimming-Pool Library; In an inversion of the Brideshead theme, the outsider, the stranger's child, is an aristocrat visiting a middle-class home and seducing the family in … Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 17, 2018. The Stranger's Child (Book) : Hollinghurst, Alan : From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty: a magnificent, century-spanning saga about a love triangle that spawns a myth, and a family mystery, across generations. Alan Hollinghurst is an English novelist, and winner of the 2004 Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 31, 2018. There was a problem loading your book clubs. The overall message could easily have been conveyed in two thirds of the words. The author has signed w/out inscription on title page. The characters, the time jumps, the poignancy of characters that were gone in the future sections and how memories of them became blurred and changed, and how ultimately they were forgotten, as we all will be. This book starts as a nice, late 19th century society novel, very conventionally told and playing in the upper British class. I perfectly understand the prize nominations and love of his work expressed widely on this site, but at the same time I was underwhelmed by the novel as a whole. Seven years later The Stranger’s Child made the Man Booker long list and then fell out of contention, which led to bitter complaints from those critics who believe that Hollinghurst is Britain’s greatest living writer. It is very clever in that many of the relationships are implied rather than explicit and some are not revealed until many years later. As should be clear by now, The Stranger's Child is a profoundly nostalgic book, in the strict Greek sense of "homesickness": it longs to go home to … Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. In "The Wizard of Oz," Dorothy, perplexed by the sudden appearances and disappearances of characters into thin air, exclaims (I paraphrase): "Gosh. It's beautifully written, filled with wonderful little observations about the way people speak and comport themselves; unfortunately, the writing is not paired with a sufficiently interesting story. I'd give those a six. Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2011. Throughout the twentieth century people start to take an interest in the poet, and even a biography is being set up. Epic in sweep, it intimately portrays a luminous but changing world and the ways memory – and myth – can be built and broken. Added to this is an exploration of the persistence of time and the transience of human memory. We suddenly encounter a cast of different characters and POVs, and it's not until several pages later we realize what that has to do with Daphne's, our main character's, story. When I finished this novel, I just sat for five minutes, thinking of where this story had taken me in past week. Forbidden love. The only other Alan Hollinghurst book I've read is the beautiful but disturbing Booker Prize winner. Yet the precision is in service to his storytelling and never overwhelms it. Please try again. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 5, 2019. What does the novel as a whole say about our ability to truly know another person? One of the lovers heroically dies in war, and becomes a well-known poet. Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! A fair amount of time passed between reading each book. 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