Art Over Artifice

The novel exploration of high art and low sex remains Alan Hollinghurst8217;s forte. Like The Swimming Pool Library, this book too is very ...

The novel exploration of high art and low sex remains Alan Hollinghurst8217;s forte. Like The Swimming Pool Library, this book too is very sexy, very camp. Yet how well this sits with his refined, almost 19th century passion for beauty and form. His need to obey the unities probably owes much to his erudition in architecture. The book8217;s title is from Hogarth8217;s phrase for rococo perfection, symbolised by the double asymmetrical curve. It also indicates a ready-to-snort line of cocaine powder, but then that8217;s Hollinghurst for you.

Nick is an aesthete drawn to a life of pleasure. His knowing eye for detail, his ear for the spoken word or a chord of music, his easily offended sense of style is interchangeable with Hollinghurst8217;s. We see Hollinghurst in Nick8217;s Oxford background, in Nick8217;s contempt for Strauss, and certainly in his worship of Henry James besides nods to his guru in every book, Alan even wrote the Ivory Tower on his life. When Nick quotes James, on whom he is doing a thesis here, we know Hollinghurst is describing what he himself wants to be or possibly is. Art is life, as the Master said.

But far more than James, and despite general comparisons of his works with Mann, Nabokov or Proust, Hollinghurst is first and last a very English writer. A critic once said he alone could write about Englishness without lapsing into histrionics, seediness or thematic bullying. It is impossible to disagree, especially given his wry wit.

Nick Guest the name is a self-conscious pun on his temporary lodger/friend status in this well-heeled world is smitten with the very straight Toby Fedden. He comes to stay at the Feddens8217; house with Toby and his charmingly outspoken sister Catherine, given to wrist-slashing and provoking her parents 8212; the graceful Rachel and the pompous MP Gerald, surrounded by a posh set that is marked by the greed, sycophancy and lack of understanding that characterised Thatcherites. Nick is the observer, fresh out of college. Nick8217;s orgies with pidgin English speaking waiters or lazy toffs brings out the 8217;80s gay scene in all its pre-AIDS innocence and classless abandon.

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This is not the first time Hollinghurst has been Booker-shortlisted. His novel is imbued with an 8217;80s feel. Not nostalgia, its very opposite, in fact. The reign of Margaret Thatcher is savaged

In fact, everything is imbued with an 8217;80s feel. Not nostalgia 8212; its very opposite, in fact. The reign of Thatcher who even dances with Nick in an unflattering cameo is savaged. Alan8217;s digs on politicians, the press and demi-royalty are brutal. All that was philistine, bigoted, venal about power then is laid bare 8212; though nowhere does Hollinghurst use these words precisely.

In the end Nick is sadly misjudged. Scandal breaks and he stands alone Catherine, his only ally in the Fedden household, slowly turns manic-depressive, forsaken black lover Leo is a face at a bar he turns away from, estranged Toby, whom he adores, holds him responsible for everything, bereaved his Lebanese multimillionaire lover Antoine has AIDS and possibly ill he expects his HIV test to come out positive. The first issue of the magazine he has been working on with Antoine8217;s money at last comes out, but it must be his last. It is called Ogee, again something the pedantic Hollinghurst typically forces us to look up in the dictionary. The ending is moving in its matter-of-fact acceptance of the transience of relationships. This chain of adoration, intimacy and disenchantment is common to all Hollinghurst8217;s novels, as is his meditation on money and morals. A deed is done, there is a cost to pay.

It is a malicious, frivolous world despite its own sense of occasion. But the cleverly shaded characters, their emotional swings, their polished conversations all evoke a way of life.

This isn8217;t the first time Hollinghurst has been Booker-shortlisted 8212; The Folding Star was similarly honoured. For me personally, the nomination is justified every time Alan Hollinghurst situates an apposite phrase, and every time he makes Nick choose art over artifice.