'The Line of Beauty' by Alan Hollinghurst

The Line of Beauty

Author: Alan Hollinghurst

Rating: B-

Vibe: Thatcher-era social climbing with exquisite prose and emotional distance

Quick Take: Stunning writing and important historical weight, but an overly long novel with a protagonist who never quite comes into focus.

There's something to be said for a book that transports you so completely to another time and place that you can practically smell the cocaine residue on inherited mahogany furniture. Alan Hollinghurst's 2004 Booker Prize winner The Line of Beauty does exactly that—dropping you into the privileged world of 1980s Conservative Britain with prose so elegant it practically wears a dinner jacket. The problem is, once you're there, you're not entirely sure why you should care about staying.

The Line of Beauty follows Nick Guest, a young gay man fresh out of Oxford who becomes a long-term houseguest with the wealthy Fedden family. Gerald Fedden is a rising Tory (conservative) MP, his wife, Rachel, comes from old money, and their daughter Catherine battles mental health issues while seeing through her family's pretensions. Over the course of four years (1983-1987), Nick navigates relationships with both a working-class Black man named Leo and a wealthy, closeted Lebanese heir named Wani, all while the AIDS crisis looms and political scandals threaten to topple the Feddens' carefully constructed world.

Let me start with what Hollinghurst gets absolutely right: the writing is breathtaking. Every sentence feels polished to a mirror shine, and his ability to capture the subtle hypocrisies and casual cruelties of the British upper class is genuinely masterful. When he writes about parties at country estates or the particular way privilege insulates people from consequences, it's devastating and precise.

More importantly, the sections dealing with AIDS carry real emotional weight. Hollinghurst shows how the disease cuts across class lines—that wealth and connections can't protect you from everything. Those conversations about gay men "deserving" their fate, the casual homophobia dressed up as concern for public health, the way families and friends abandon people when they need them most—it all felt sickeningly familiar. I grew up in the 90s, not the 80s, but I remember similar conversations with my own family. The way Hollinghurst captures that particular intersection of fear, ignorance, and cruelty is probably the book's greatest achievement.

But here's where I struggled: Nick never quite becomes a fully realized character. Yes, his meandering through life as a young gay man feels realistic—most of us didn't have it all figured out at twenty-something. But I kept waiting for some deeper introspection, some moment where he'd reckon with his choices or develop genuine insight about himself or his world. Instead, he remains oddly passive, defined more by the people around him than by any internal development.

The class commentary, while skillful, left me feeling vaguely icky. Hollinghurst shows us the glamour and seduction of wealth, then delivers the inevitable downfall—but it all feels rather predictable. The Feddens' world is beautiful and terrible, and while I understand that's the point, I finished the book not quite sure what new insight I was supposed to take from watching privileged people be awful in predictable ways.

And then there's the pacing. The beginning drags considerably, and while the middle section picks up momentum, there were multiple times throughout where I found myself wanting the story to move faster. At over 500 pages, it's a substantial commitment that doesn't always feel earned.

For gay readers, The Line of Beauty offers something genuinely valuable: a portrait of gay life in a hostile world, the particular challenges of being closeted in conservative spaces, and the way external homophobia becomes internalized shame.

I respect The Line of Beauty more than I loved it. Hollinghurst is undeniably talented, and there are moments—particularly when dealing with AIDS and its aftermath—where the book achieves real power. But beautiful prose can only carry you so far when the emotional core feels distant and the story overstays its welcome.

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