Alan Hollinghurst The Spell

Alan Hollinghurst, The Spell - Written prior to Hollinghurst's Booker-winning novel The Line of Beauty, I was given The Spell for Christmas as it was out in paperback. The book itself is magnificently written, Hollinghurst's prose being an absolute delight to read. As a result, I took my time over the book, reading it over the space of a couple of months, rather than my usual rush through a novel in a few days.

The book tells the story of the relationships between four gay men in the mid-nineties. Alex is in his mid-thirties, is very sensitive and is getting over his relationship with Justin who has met forty-something Robin and moved into his country cottage. Justin invites his ex-lover to visit which is where Alex meets Robin's 23 year old son Dan, falls in love and is introduced into the London club scene where he tries drugs for the first time and begins to come out of himself a bit.

The perspective of the book is intriguing with chapters told from the different points of view so the reader can see the different thought processes of the characters relating to each other. Alex is madly in love and wants to improve Dan's prospects, Dan sees his relationship as temporary and Alex as naive. Robin dislikes Dan, is insecure about Justin and sees himself as very mature, whereas Justin is flighty and led by his whims, and takes none of his relationships as seriously as his partners do.

Ultimately, despite the beauty of the language, the subtle humour and the intruguing and useful approach, I found the book mildly disappointing as Hollinghurst failed to really explore properly the relationships he began to develop. Everything felt a bit hastily done and very much cut short. I would have been happy to wade through another 100-150 pages in order to get more detail and a bit more plot.

I suspect that The Spell sees Hollinghurst working out his style and practising his trade and that subsequent books may not have the same issues within. I will certainly be testing that theory when The Line of Beauty comes out in paperback. Overall, this book is worth the read for the prose alone, that is, if you can stand the rather, erm, descriptive nature of the encounters between these four men (i.e., this is not one for the kiddies or the more prudish among us!).