The Line of Beauty

a novel

Hardcover, 438 pages

English language

Published Feb. 3, 2004 by Bloomsbury.

ISBN:
978-1-58234-508-6
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OCLC Number:
55495152

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4 stars (11 reviews)

It is the summer of 1983, and twenty-year-old Nick Guest has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby--whom Nick had idolized at Oxford--and Catherine, highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions, who becomes both a friend to Nick and his uneasy responsibility.

As the boom years of the mid-eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in matters of politics and money, becomes caught up in the Feddens' world--its grand parties, its surprising alliances, its parade of monsters both comic and menacing. In an era of endless possibility, he finds himself able to pursue his own private obsession with beauty--a prize as compelling to him as power and riches to his friends. An affair with a young black clerk gives him his first experience of romance, but it is a later affair …

15 editions

Review of 'The Line of Beauty' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

While the writing itself was exceptional, the author can really capture those subtle details, I struggled with the narrative itself. Nick's personal story was engaging, but I have the sense that much of the author's point will be missed by those with knowledge of Thatcher's policies and British politics in general, including myself.

Review of 'Line of Beauty' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A gorgeously written book. Since so many people before me have provided such complete summaries, I will simply pick out one of many paragraphs that moved me.


"What really was his understanding with Wani? The pursuit of love seemed to need the cultivation of indifference. The deep connection between them was so secret that at times it was hard to believe it existed. He wondered if anyone knew--had even a flicker of a guess, an intuition blinked away by its own absurdity. How could anyone tell? He felt there must always be hints of a secret affair, some involuntary tenderness or respect, a particular way of not noticing each other...He wondered if it ever would be known, or if they would take the secret to the grave. For a minute he felt unable to move, as if he were hypnotized by Wani's image..."

And the paragraph that alludes to the …

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Subjects

  • University of Oxford -- Alumni and alumnae -- Fiction
  • Male friendship -- Fiction
  • Social classes -- Fiction
  • Married people -- Fiction
  • Legislators -- Fiction
  • Rich people -- Fiction
  • Young men -- Fiction
  • Gay men -- Fiction
  • Psychological fiction
  • Notting Hill (London, England) -- Fiction