Access The Strangers Child Narrated By Alan Hollinghurst Presented As Mobi

book starts as a nice, lateth century society novel, very conventionally told and playing in the upper British class, But appearances are deceiving, because Hollinghurst has made a pretty ingenious piece of work with alternating time periods, different storytelling perspectives and several layers of meaning.


There are quite a few connecting elements between thetime frames that the author provides us with starting in, ending in.
The aristocratic Daphne Sawle in the first place: in the beginning she's still a jumpy teenager of, and towards the end a lucid, but very reserved lady of more thanaround her circulate her brother George, her ex husband Dudley and some of her children.
And then there is the impressive Cecil Valance, the "young god slash poet notwithoutmerit", who died in the First World War, but returns in every period of time, in the form of a marble tomb, always the object of speculation about who he really was.
And finally, gay love is also a recurring storyline in the first time frames it still is surrounded by taboo and secrecy, later of course much less the nice thing is that Hollinghurst uses the gay theme as an ordinary story element and not provocative as with other authors.


In my opinion, the central focus of this novel is the debilitating effect of time, more specifically its harshness and inexorableness at the beginning of every new time frame all sorts of dramatic things appear to have happened in the years before.
But it is especially disconcerting to see how the protagonists themselves deal with that past: they manipulate it, consciously and unconsciously, distort the most essential data or withhold them, or simply forget them, so that it is impossible for others later to discover the 'real' past.
To my opinion that is the strongest layer of meaning of this novel: all protagonists are "stranger's children", namely estranged from their own past you have to take this literally, because it is striking how all relationships in this novel between lovers, spouses, brothers and sisters, but also between parents and children in time become distant, cynical or even hostile.
And Hollinghurst also illustrates it figuratively in the decay of the great country houses where the novel started,

So, it's really interesting what Hollinghurst presents in this novel, But there are also a few drawbacks: the constant introduction of new characters in every time frame works quite alienating the novel starts in a smashing and fascinating way, but gradually the tempo slows down, and certainly towards the end the focus is on highly detailed, very 'loaden' conversations where you have to keep an eye on what is being manipulated, and what is unspoken, and that is a pretty demanding read and finally, the end itself was a bit of a letdown for me, like an emptying balloon.
But anyway: my first encounter with Hollinghurst certainly tastes like more, Now I don't read Booker Prizewinning author Alan Hollinghurst for his storytelling, In truth, the lyrical beauty of his flawless writing almost negates the need for a story, So my fivestar rating is solely for his penmanship though he doesn't employ synonyms for the word "said", The repetition of "he said/she said" dialogue tags is hard to ignore,
Alas, the story, such as it is, drags itself along like a beached turtle,
This ambitious and lengthy novel is rather difficult to describe an English upperclass/middleclass love triangle with a smattering of homoerotica thrown in a BridesheadmeetsAtonement hybrid, but without a plot.
I felt as if I was witnessing an evolution, rather than anything resembling a story,
So, in truth, it was tedious, The author, like Ian McEwan, is undeniably one of Britain's finest writers and, as is true of McEwan, it's his elegant prose that steals the show.
Hollinghurst is an artist in command of his craft but the whole, unfortunately, was less than the sum of its parts and if I were to rate the actual story, it would only merit a measly two.


Still, Hollinghurst is a highly gifted writer, Most authors out there would hate to have him peering over their shoulders while theyre tapping at a keyboard, so who am I to award him anything less than five lustrous

Nonexistent story.
. . two
Toptier prose, five
Writing wins! Apparently I'm incapable of enjoying another "country house novel, " After the archetypal Brideshead Revisted, is there any need for another For the firstpages of The Stranger's Child I kept wondering if I was rereading sitelink Atonement The Stranger's Child is also narrated by a precocious pubescent girl observing the affairs of her elders.
But before the long the sitelinkDance to the Music of Time doldrums took over, the meticulous descriptions

of the preciosities of the English upper class, the sexless sex among the shrubberies, the repressed cigars and brandy after dinner I was craving a sip of sitelinkSaki.


Emboldened by sitelinka glowing review in The Guardian, I ordered a copy from Amazon UK, Sadly,.andpages of Jamesian indirection later, I realized that I was approaching the book and its mannered ironies as a chore, I'll freely admit that this review broadcasts my inability to appreciate the writer whom Theo Tait described as "perhaps, . . the best English novelist working today, " The Swimming Pool Library had its wet charms, but I couldn't finish The Line of Beauty either, I enjoy erudite sodomy as much as the next guy but no more "gay sex pastorals" for me,


I loved this, everything about this, The characters, the time jumps, the poignancy of characters that were gone in the future sections and how memories of them became blurred and changed, and how ultimately they were forgotten, as we all will be.
And the one character whose memory was threaded through the book became someone else from the real man, Very clever. The only negative thing to say is about the cover I really don't like it, This novel explores Hollinghursts usual themes: sexuality, family and social dynamics and the nature of art and artists, Added to this is an exploration of the persistence of time and the transience of human memory, This was a cracking good read to start the new year with,

My next book: sitelinkMay Contain Traces of Magic Last week I read Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child, And boy, what an ordeal this has been, The whole novel just didn't appeal to me, It started out as some sort of Wuthering Heights spinoff, but with a gay twist to it, One of the lovers heroically dies in war, and becomes a wellknown poet, The rest of the story is more or less a quest of remembering the dead poet, Throughout the twentieth century people start to take an interest in the poet, and even a biography is being set up, The relationships between the characters start to echo the relationships between the nineteenth century characters at the beginning of the novel, And lo and behold It even results in a new gay relationship, A relationship that was forecasted by the relation between the poet and his lover, So, with some good will, you might read the novel as an alternative, gay, history of England, And although that might have its merits, it just didn't appeal to me, Firstly, I do like comingofage stories, but I don't like plain moral or sentimental drama, To me, that particular genre has gotten old after Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, Perhaps it's because as a man, I lack the finesse to grasp the subtle stabs at the human condition, but to me it's just boring.

So, I usually keep away from novels like that, But Hollinghurst's novel came critically acclaimed and applauded for its wit and stirring narrative, So I caved, though I should've known better,
The narrative is simply grinding to a halt after the first chapter, The first chapter didn't quite appeal to me as well, but I did have the feeling it was going somewhere, Yet, it just came to a halt after the first chapter and the poets death, So nothing stirring there. In fact, I couldn't find one aspect of suspense in the entire novel, Really disappointing. And wit and funny I haven't chuckled once throughout the entire novel, It just completely missed its mark, as far as I'm concerned,
The only redeeming feature is Hollinghurst's prose, He does know how to write, His sentences are wellbalanced and properly paced, On the syntaxlevel, this book is very well written, That's the only reason I found the stamina to push through and read the novel, Otherwise I'd given up after chapter,
But it has been an eyeopener, I really ought to steer away from novels like this, no matter how critically acclaimed they come, These novels are just not my cup of tea, .