Alan Hollinghurst - "The Line of Beauty"""

"Well, he loved meeting you," he said. "Aah..." Sophie purred, as if to say that people usually did enjoy that. I loved it. It's all so arch, so London, so Thatcher era, so Kensington. The narrator, Nick Guest, is wonderfully done. A curious mixture of admiration, envy and longing for the glittering London life, while pretending to keep a cynical distance. His hosts, the Fedden family, are also very well written, with Hollinghurst capturing brilliantly that slightly stagey aura of the upper classes and their terrible self-awareness of family traditions and heritage. Some of the other characters don't work quite as well: Wani, Nick's wealthy Lebanese lover, never has me convinced for a moment that he's a real person and it isn't really explained what Nick sees in him. I did expect the whole AIDS/gay topic to be a much more central theme. Somehow the novel is much more of a comedy of manners than I would have expected - i'm thinking here of the set pieces such as Toby's 21st birthday and "The Lady's" visit to the Fedden home.The result is very amusing, ginving ample opportunity for some deft character sketches, but less involving than the other Hollinghurst novels I've read. That shouldn't detract, however, from the wonderful style and the author's ear for a "bon mot". Highly recommended (particularly if you were there - it made me very nostalgic).