• Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
  • Search Site

Polari Magazine

  • Home
  • Up Front
    • Editorial
    • Clementine: The Living Fashion Doll
    • Polari Safari
    • WTF? Friday
    • Bulletin Board
    • Polari Facts
  • Features
    • Interviews
    • Features
    • Gallery
    • Opinion
    • Heroes & Villains
  • Community
    • Oral Histories
    • Coming Out Stories
    • Relationships
    • IDAHO
    • LGBT History Month
    • Blogs
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Film and Television
    • Music
    • Stage
    • Visual Arts
    • Classics: Books
    • Classics: Film and Television
    • Classics: Music
  • About
    • About Polari Magazine
    • Contributors
    • Contact

You are here: Polari Magazine / Books / The Stranger’s Child • Alan Hollinghurst

The Stranger’s Child • Alan Hollinghurst

17 Jul 2012 / Comments Off / in Books/by Tim Bennett-Goodman

The Stranger’s Child ★★★★★
Alan Hollinghurst
564 pages • Picador • May 24, 2012 [PB]
…………………………………………………………………………………………. 

Just when one might have thought it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Alan Hollinghurst to top his existing magnificent literary offerings, along comes a monumental new novel which proves one wrong by easily matching, if not exceeding, everything he has offered previously.

Hollinghurst has a sublime, if distinctly unsettling, grasp of the English class system with all its attendant snobberies. His ear is finely-tuned to the subtle nuances of English class distinction and the not-so-subtle hurts and downright cruelties that each class inflicts on the one (or ones) beneath it. And as The Stranger’s Child is an historical family saga, starting in 1913, these are more blatant and obviously delineated in the earlier sections than the later, and much more so than in his more contemporary novels such as The Line of Beauty, where, though less overt, they are no less inhibiting of and damaging to the personal relations of his characters.

Hollinghurst is also particularly adept at dissecting the group dynamic of parties and other social gatherings, of which there are many throughout the course of this long novel. His writing is so dense and intricate that one is drawn in to a whole world built up of subtly interwoven relationships bridging almost a century.

At the start of The Stranger’s Child, Cecil Valance, the scion of Corley Court in Berkshire, comes to spend a week of the vacs with his university chum, George Sawle, at his family home, ‘Two Acres’, in Stanmore, Middlesex. The contrast between the ancestral pile of the Valances in the depths of the rural Home Counties and the comfortable suburban “Arts and Crafts” home of the Sawles (all oak beams and inglenooks) on the outer-perimeter of London could not be more stark. Indeed, we are told that George’s late father has even installed, at some trouble and expense, a rockery in the garden, his pride and joy (the implication being “a rockery for God’s sake – the epitome of bourgeois pretension – how very déclassé!”).

Cecil exhibits all the winning charm, as well as the casual arrogance and cruelty, of his class, while George is prone to all the insecurities and anxieties of his. There are some excruciating moments during dinner parties for this dazzling guest, who has landed in the midst of a quiet, respectable suburban middle-class family setting unused to such excitements. Nevertheless, the two boys share the same charmed world of the Cambridge college elite and Cecil has even introduced George into a secret society and thus become his “father”. And they are also lovers.

As the book progresses, their brief contact with Cecil, it  gradually becomes apparent, has gilded but also irreversibly blighted the lives of the Sawle family. Gradually unfolding revelations make clear his baleful influence, not only upon George, but also on George’s younger sister, Daphne, his elder brother, Hubert, his mother, Freda, their neighbour, Mrs Kalbeck (aka ‘Mrs Cow’), and boy-servant, Jonah. It is as if a Greek god has descended from the Olympian heights to mix with mortals and in so doing seared them all with his Promethean fire.

Later, the weekend house party at Corley Court, where all the protagonists have gathered to mark the tenth anniversary of Cecil’s death as a Captain fighting in France in 1916, is another opportunity seized by Hollinghurst to lay bare the underlying tensions and dysfunctionality of a family and its house guests. As such, it is agonising and hilarious by turns.

The diplomatic Sebastian ‘Sebby’ Stokes has been commissioned by the dowager Lady Valance to put together a life of her late son. As Sebby attempts to gather oral and documentary material from the assembled family and guests, it becomes apparent that everyone has something to hide and, as the weekend culminates in a celebratory dinner and impromptu dance, every conceivable social gaffe, insult, slight and embarrassment is played out in a swirling comedy of manners which grows more intensely and grotesquely out-of-hand the drunker the assembly becomes.

Are they drinking to forget? Almost certainly, but whether the past or the present it is difficult to tell, although it is in all probability both. This is reminiscent of a scene from a Noel Coward comedy of the era: brittle, witty, clever – and terribly, terribly poignant. This tragi-comic chapter is, for me, one of the highlights of the book and an absolute tour-de-force – though descriptions of Daphne‘s 70th birthday party in 1967, the Oxford conference in 1980 for Sir Dudley Valance, Cecil’s surviving younger brother, and the memorial gathering in 2008 run it close and are equally forensic and insightful.

In the opening section of The Stranger’s Child there are many similarities with other literature of the same period, which is not to say that it is in any sense derivative. While there must inevitably be resonances when treating of the same era and milieu, one supposes, Hollinghurst’s mordant ‘take’ on it is fresh, original and incredibly penetrating.

For example, the ‘servant problem’ is ubiquitous; there will inevitably be personal, inter-generational, dynastic, sexual and class struggles; and there is the omnipresent pain and shame of transgressive love, problematic either because it  “dare not speak its name” or because it cuts across class barriers – or, far worse, both.

Whereas in Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (as in E.M. Forster’s Maurice) the issue of homosexuality is compounded by class differences, even in Hartley’s The Go-Between, where the love is  heterosexual, it is still forbidden on account of the class divide. Forster goes one further in his A Passage to India by introducing, as an added complication, the issue of race between Adela Quested and Dr Aziz. (Come to think of it, Julian Fellowes also raises this in Downton Abbey, where, as well as one of the footmen being gay, there is the frisson of Lady Mary and Kemal Pamuk’s ill-fated affaire.) The course of true love in the New Georgian era, it seems, never did run smooth!

In fact, at the risk of sounding an irreverent note (and without wishing in any way to belittle Hollinghurst’s towering achievement) there is more than a fleeting suggestion of Brideshead Revisted-meets-Downton Abbey in The Stranger’s Child. Hollinghurst’s pre-First World War Cambridge could easily be swapped for Waugh’s Oxford, and Highclere Castle in Berkshire could equally as well be the model for Hollinghurst’s Victorian Gothic monstrosity, Corley Court,  as it is for Fellowes’ telegenic and eponymous stately pile.

However that may be, this formidable work enhances his already towering canon, and his literary reputation, exponentially. Hollinghurst has set himself a frightening challenge to top it. Even if this were his crowning achievement and the last thing he ever published (which seems unlikely to be the case) it would be a dazzling finale to any literary career. All that said, his fertile imagination will doubtless come up with something even more impressive with which to entertain and astound.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
Tags: alan hollinghust, book review, brideshead revisited, downton abbey, e.m. forster, english class, family saga, historical fiction, julian fellowes, maurice, stranger's child

Related Posts

Did you like this entry?
Here are a few more posts that might be interesting for you.
Related Posts
Bring Up The Bodies Audio
Always You, Edina • V.G. Lee
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier, Polari Magazine, gay online magazine The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
You typed ‘kissing cadavers’ into Goog...
Coming Out Stories: What the Friend Did
Bokassa’s Last Apostle • Rod Shelton
Cry Shame • Katherine Everard
Niv • Itamar S.N
Our LGBT Histories: Music – Day 15
LGBT Heroes – Day 10

Search Polari

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

About Polari Magazine

Polari Magazine is an LGBT arts and culture magazine that explores the subculture by looking at what is important to the people who are in it. It’s about the lives we lead, not the lifestyles we’re supposed to lead.

Its content is informed & insightful, and features a diverse range of writers from every section of the community. Its intent is to help LGBT readers learn about their own heritage and to sustain a link between the present and the past.

Polari is designed to nurture the idea of community, whether that be social and political, or artistic and creative. It is your magazine, whether you want to read it, or whether you want to get involved in it, if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or queer.

Polari Magazine is all these: it's a gay online magazine; it's a gay and lesbian online magazine; it's an LGBT arts and culture magazine. Ultimately, it is a queer magazine.

Latest Posts

  • Polari Magazine 2008-2014December 3, 2014 - 6:16 pm
  • Tearing Up Their Map: An Interview with LambDecember 2, 2014 - 2:45 pm
  • Future Islands • GigDecember 2, 2014 - 1:41 pm
  • Puppets with Attitude (at Christmas)December 1, 2014 - 6:30 pm
  • The Aesthetic of Voyeurism: Interview with Antonio Da SilvaDecember 1, 2014 - 1:25 pm
  • Broke With Expensive Taste • Azealia BanksNovember 28, 2014 - 3:59 pm
  • Royalty Strutting on an American College Stage: Miss and Mr. Gay ISU 2014November 27, 2014 - 2:59 pm
  • Bright Light Bright Light: Everything I Ever WantedNovember 26, 2014 - 11:15 am
  • Jaime Nanci And The Blueboys: ‘Toy’ TalkNovember 25, 2014 - 4:09 pm

Twitter

Tweets by @PolariMagazine

Archive

  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • July 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
© Copyright - Polari Magazine - Wordpress Theme by Kriesi.at
  • scroll to top
  • Send us Mail
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Website Privacy & Cookies