The Spell - Hardcover

Hollinghurst, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701165197 ISBN 13: 9780701165192

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 1998

Synopsis

LIKE NEW/LIKE NEW, SIGNED 1ST EDITION, SIGNED BY AUTHOR, STATED 1ST EDITION: 1ST PRINTING as evidenced by complete number line, including the number 1. Hardcover. Signed and inscribed by author, on full title page. Dust jacket has minor shelf and light edge wear, with slight crinkling to top back edge. In like new, unread condition, not price clipped, not library edition, not remainder marked. Seller is a lifelong book collector and each edition comes directly from his 35,000+ volume collection! All orders are shipped by Signed, Autographed, First Edition & Just Books every business day using USPS Media Mail for all U S. orders. Orders shipped from Signed, Autographed, First Edition &Just Books, Grover Beach, California. 93433-1585, Thank You, for your business!! DGS 1140 V BS 4

About this title

Review

Alan Hollinghurst writes like a dream about the nightmare of unequal affection. In his third novel, The Spell, four men dance around one another, their emotions and actions ranging from casual cruelty to anxiety to adoration. Hollinghurst's painful but smiling roundelay alternates between Dorset--where 40ish architect Robin shares a house with the impossibly self-involved Justin--and London. When Justin's ex, Alex, arrives for a weekend in the country, the atmosphere is instantly rich with jealousy and power plays. And after the trio is joined by a younger gay man, Danny--who turns out to be Robin's son--the attractions and duplicities multiply exponentially. Alex, for instance, soon admits to Danny, "I've got a ruinous taste for takers," and they (and we) are off and running.

As ever, Hollinghurst's prose is musical and sensual but also deeply witty. Even the birds in this novel modulate their song from somnolent calls to outright chuckles--echoing the pleasures and absurdities of the humans they circle. And the author's feel for the easy intimacies and brutalities that his characters exchange is unmatched. As Justin (clad only in a tanga) escorts Alex around the cottage, he points out some vases: "These pots, darling, were made by potters of the greatest probity." Hollinghurst's descriptions are marvelous, whether of landscape or human frailty. After leaving a rather unrelaxed restaurant with Alex, "Danny recovered his air of bossiness and mystery, like a prefect in the school of pleasure." And when the two obtain some Ecstasy and hit one of Danny's haunts--a brilliantly realized club--the author reveals the rapture and idiocy in each moment:

The boys glistened and pawed at the ground. They looked like members of some dodgy brainwashing cult.... Alex saw that what he most wanted was happening and groped marvellingly between the different kinds of happiness, the chemicals and the sex. It seemed that happening and happiness were the same, he must remember that, to tell everyone.

But as amusing as Alan Hollinghurst is, his forte is loss. Again and again he reminds us that solitary sadness is a wink away from comedy and sexual possession. --Kerry Fried

About the Author

Alan Hollinghurst's first novel, The Swimming-Pool Library, was one of the most highly praised first novels to appear in the 1980s. In 1993 Hollinghurst was selected by Granta as one of the Best Young British Novelists. His second novel, The Folding Star, was short-listed for the Booker Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0701165197
• ISBN 13: 9780701165192
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 257