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Title: The Spell
ISBN: 0140286373
Author:
Alan Hollinghurst
Publicate Date: 2000-05-01
Publish: 2000-05-01
List Price: $15.00
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.50
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.43
Amazon Merchant Price: $11.25
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Darling...COLOSSALLY BORING !!
Well, I guess the headline sums up my opinion of this book. Trite, unnecessary wordy, overly verbose relative to setting, the plot is at best mildly engaging. A father-son gay team, (not lovers, just familial), a protagonist and his ex-lover, and a mix of infidelities are mixed together with an overly indulgent addition of drugs and alcohol, to supposedly portray a vividly convoluted story. The story never actively engaged this reader, and frankly, I became quite tired of the use of the word "darling" as a form of address amongst the players. Too much of a good thing is bad, too much of a bad thing is unforgivable from an accomplished author! This reader never felt any sense of empathy or sympathy for ANY of the characters, and in fact, I found them pathetic in their own measly way. Needless to say, I recommend you pass this one by.
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2: The Least Gay Fiction by A Gay Author
I am enchanted by this novel. It has everything a good tale should have. Love, flirtation, disappointment in the lives of the four main characters, suspension and denouement in their actions or passivity, a wonderful description of the environment in which these upper-middle class Englishmen move, a lovely style so full of unexpected turns of phrase and new insights for someone like me who was never attracted by drugs, life in the country or people older than me.
What however strikes me most is the absence of happenings that are typically gay. Perhaps the only true gay experience lies in the switch of Robin's persuasion from hetero husband to gay father and this must have happened twenty years ago and is not gone into in any great detail. All the other events could occur in any group of people not necessarily gay.
Danny, whose development from a flirtatious, irresponsible young thing to a person of maturity, could be Daniela; Justin, who leaves Alex for Robin, Danny's father, could be Justine; Terry, the slut, could be the village whore, Teresa. A few minor characters who move in gay circles could be the personnel of any novel. Alex's mid-life crisis which drives him to young blood, is not a particularly gay feature. Nor are the whims and predilections of the novel's characters particular to gay lifestyle.
To sum up: Alan Hollinghurst has written a masterly novel which should attract anyone whether gay or not, because it is a perfect com??die humaine.
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3: sexy.
A subtle and beautiful novel about lust and love.The story tells of an odd foursome, fuelled by drugs and passion, make connections both lasting and powerful.
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4: Tapestry of love, lust, loss, and finding love
Unlike The Line of Beauty, Hollinghurst's most recent release, which affords the usual elegant prose of the story of a young man under the roof of a Parliament member during Margaret Thatcher's England, The Spell is almost completely rid of political overtone. Tinged with pique and cross-purpose jokes, page by page the novel weaves a tapestry of love, lust, and loss among a group of middle-class gay Englishmen who are friends, ex-lovers, father and son. In exploring each of these relations and the uneasy conflicts, Hollinghurst's elegant, crisp prose fosters a sharp observation and psychological insight that accentuate these men's vulnerability.
Close reading of The Spell reveals a very fine-tuned delineation of each of the four men, whose personalities and struggles incontrovertibly pervade in many of us. The story kicks off when the 36-years-old Alex accepts invitation from his ex-boyfriend Justin to spend a weekend in the country home with his new lover Robin, a forty-something gay dad. The prose lends its abrupt nature to the suspicion that Justin must out of his guilty respect for Alex's feelings to extend the solicitous invitation. But Alex is mellow and meek - he can never blame Justin for capriciously leaving him. He still misses Justin despite of the devastating evidence that what his friends hostilely say about him is vindicated. From the weekend gathering Hollinghurst probes the topography of the hearts of these men.
That Hollinghurst is able to capture the terrain of his characters' emotional and mental struggle through the intimacy of their thoughts touches me. The novel is an immediate warm attachment to my heart. Even though Alex is constantly in people's company, the companionship and the bar scenes compound his loneliness and amplify his depression. Alex's absence of any allusion to his ex-lover's new love is clear sign of how upset he might be. No sooner has he arrived than he regrets of taking up the invitation because he has to hide how wounded he is by Justin, and thrives to sustain the right pitch of pretended toward Robin. What ultimately dooms him is the cruel reality of his failure in relationship, that no other man will want him and to fall in love with him. This is not easy for someone like Alex who is serious, cultured, someone who wears his sleeve out in a relationship, and that one relationship into which he imbues all his hope breaks his heart. That commitment and innocence shall meet a reckless betrayal in the end must arouse sympathy.
Hollinghurst's novel is never deprived of drug escapade. At the crossroad of relationship, Alex insouciantly drops a tab of ecstasy, provided by Robin's gay son, and plunges into the rave, high-energy, substance-fuelled London club scenes. Alex embraces nightlife as if it might promise a love life that is not as checkered. Under the power of the E pill, Alex has no regret of his late-booming hedonism in which he gropes in an unbridled way different kinds of happiness. As he dawns on his self-discovery through the liberation, the shock of seeing Alex again brings about Justin a quiet bout of vexation, undulation, whoofs of lust, and puzzled fondness. Reunion with Alex and his fight with Robin seizes Justin with the grip of scruple over his momentary caprice that sometimes can cause a horrid nuisance in someone else's life.
The Spell with the outward blowsy parties and carefree affairs is endowed with an undertow of finding true love. It embraces the longing for a soul mate despite a humanistic thirst for carnal deviance. It maps out different paths in life taken by various men. The path could be one that has been gripped and shaped by sexual lore, or one that witnesses the constant indispensable presence of lovers, or one that relishes the deceits and the success of which delivers a sense of competence.
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5: OVER-RATED!
Tedious. That's the best word I can find to describe this book. Yes, Hollinghurst is a good writer but there's more to writing than exhausting and exhaustive descriptions of every mouth movement, eyebrow-raise, hand-gesture, tilt of the head! Things have to happen too! Major plot-occurrences should be SHOWN rather than talked about second-hand after the fact! There's got to be some sort of rising action to the plot! I swear, if you blink you'll miss the climax to this book. And if you do, you probably won't care. The four main characters are barely tolerable, let alone likeable. The reader never knows who to root for! And Alex, the one character who MIGHT warrant some reader affection and loyalty, is a drip. I couldn't care less if his relationship with Danny worked out or not.The only reason I slogged through to the end of this book was to see if it could somehow redeem itself. It didn't. Trust me, you'll be spending as much time counting how many excruciating pages are left to read as you will actually reading.
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