The Line of Beauty - March 2021 Book Group Discussion thread

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LindsD Mar 2021 8:55am, 19 Mar 2021 45,744 posts	0 LindsD Fair enough
Diogenes Mar 2021 8:56am, 19 Mar 2021 58,528 posts	0 Diogenes It’s funny how our book choices become like our babies, and others treat them as such
LindsD Mar 2021 8:59am, 19 Mar 2021 45,745 posts	0 LindsD True!
Serendippily Mar 2021 8:56am, 20 Mar 2021 21,293 posts	0 Serendippily There is a big wad of books where I enjoy the first three quarters and dislike the final bit. This was the other way round: found the first three quarters mildly interminable, although suavely written, and really enjoyed the last bit. It is also more readable than “infinite jest” which is a low bar. I’ve read portrait of a lady and I was conscious I was supposed to see links about taste, and wealth and new/old money and betrayal to the papers. But I found Alan Clarke’s diaries a much more convincing Gerald and Margaret. (I met her once, don’t you know, she was a guest of honour at the Cabinet War Rooms when dementia was fairly set in). And I didn’t enjoy the 80s much. The rest of the family had a certain charm, it was a struggle to see Toby as a journalist. He had fun with the odious characters and all the racist interludes rang true.
Serendippily Mar 2021 9:08am, 20 Mar 2021 21,294 posts	0 Serendippily So reading back: not many comments. I wasn’t invested in Nick, all that braying and conquest made it a long few hours in his company, up until things fall apart. So not with you there Linds. But I still gave it an 8 because I think as well as being a plummy descriptive writer (in a good way), he captures the tone of conversation adeptly, and there was some nicely drawn set pieces, like the fete, and the french trip, and the greeting of the neighbour in the garden
Sharkie Mar 2021 4:43pm, 20 Mar 2021 17,684 posts	0 Sharkie I mentioned that when Linds chose the book I had been entirely coincidentally weighing it up on my London bookshelves, thinking, 'Shall I read that again? I don't remember much about it...' I didn't say anything else at the time because I'd liked it enough not to throw away or pass on ... but think I was a little underwhelmed. Sixteen years have passed since I bought it. Here's my copy. I've nearly finished the first section and appreciate it more this time. I think Linds mentioned that it's interesting as a companion piece to It's a Sin, same times, same town, same er, gayness - but very different social sets. And book and series are both written very much in retrospect, determined to give us that 80s feel. I keep casting the boy who played Roscoe as Leo... but apart apart from being black and gay they are not really alike. More alike than Colin from It's a Sin and Line of Beauty's Nick though ... though because they both seem like observers I'm doing the same thing. They are nothing alike really - Nick is more like Pip from Great Expectations.
Sharkie Mar 2021 4:46pm, 20 Mar 2021 17,685 posts	0 Sharkie I like 'suavely written' Dipps. I find Hollinghurst a tiny bit fond of his own writing. Is that fair? But then Henry James doesn't half go on....
LindsD Mar 2021 5:31pm, 20 Mar 2021 45,784 posts	0 LindsD Yes. Very like Pip
Peregrinator Mar 2021 11:18pm, 20 Mar 2021 815 posts	0 Peregrinator The Line of Beauty I started reading TLOB at the same time that Kazuo Ishiguro was talking about writing and cancel culture. Should a male author write fiction from a female viewpoint, a white author write a book about slavery from a black viewpoint, a lesbian relationship by someone who is not? I realise that this is a matter of the world we live in: changing an imperfect world involves different choices from those we might make in a perfect one. Any really good actor in a perfect world could play Othello, but in a world where there are many brilliant under-employed black actors, why pick a white one. But books seem different. Partly the entry-point is much lower: in principle anyone can write a book from what-ever viewpoint they want, although I suspect it needs more just a good plot, effective writing and luck to become a best seller. Not everyone has the access to appear in films likely to hit world markets, or have directors in productions likely to reach the big time. Or even the encouragement to consider a career in the arts in the first place. I assumed that people reading outside their culture was a good thing, but maybe not if its only done to feel good about ourselves. Ishiguro says writers have "the obligation to teach ourselves and to do research and to treat people with respect if we're going to have them feature in our work": we as readers have the same obligation towards authors. In TLOB we have 500 pages on the 1980's. If I wrote everything I have from my experience of the 1980's it would only come to about 30 pages - and much of that would be how to wire-up a RS-232 cable for an Epson dot-matrix printer. On politics - I suppose there were people who liked - loved - Margaret Thatcher. The story I remember about Margaret Thatcher was when she was presenting an award to a company that developed a drinking water testing kit for developing countries. Mrs. Thatcher asked "How much money do we make selling these kits?", to which the woman demonstrating it said "We don't, Prime Minister, we save lives". Kenny Everett, another ambiguous link between gay and Tory, notoriously said "When we were an empire, we had an emperor. Now we're a country, and we have Margaret Thatcher." I'm not sure about the politics, but having had a quick look at Hollinghurst's life, this is presumably from his experience of the time: the drinking habits of UCL lecturers, gay relationships, Oxford student life, Henry James, effects of AIDS. To be critical well outside my experience - would a gay relationship between a black man and a white man really never have been threatened by a toxic mix of racism and homophobia -this was the era of "My Beautiful Laundrette"? Was high society in Kensington an oasis of progressive toleration? So why the title "Line of Beauty"? I was aware of Hogarth's aesthetic theory, having had one of those children’s encyclopaedia that, in pre-internet days, decided what questions children needed answers to and then answered them. For example, "What sort of nests do Weaver birds make" and "How long is the great wall of China". In answer to the question "What was Hogarth's line of beauty?" it had a picture of the double curve. I got to the lines of cocaine. The shape of a back. But also something about fluidity, twisting, hypocrisy? A good read - on Kindle I reached 100% in what seemed a lot less than the advertised 500 pages. I found I wasn't too fussed about the fate of the Feddons or the effect on the Conservative party. But I don't think TLOB is an iconic book for the 1980's. Anyone got a better nomination? Overall, I'm more likely to call up Nick Jenkins or Nick Carraway than Nick Guest.
Diogenes Mar 2021 11:24pm, 20 Mar 2021 58,566 posts	0 Diogenes Excellent review. I’m trying to think of a good nomination but I might be a while. I can think of some tv series but novels escape me for the moment.