Hello Gentle Reader
Have you ever thought about that kind of sickening though about someone writing about your own life? The thought itself, makes my skin prickle with goose flesh – resembling a naked turkey on Christmas day being prepared to be tossed into the oven. The mere thought of someone conducting interviews about me, with close friends, family and others who have worked either with me or have come to know something about me through the years. Just picturing someone who feels it is their god given right interview those people, who knew me, and find out all they can about me, is a sickening thought. No one has the right to know anything about anyone. Though we often feel that we are entitled to know something’s about everyone – and often at times we do know things, it does not mean that we are entitled to know everything about an individual. Sure we all know certain things about friends, and coworkers, and family members – though family members are the worst to know about. We know that a co-worker has x amount of children, varying from the ages y to z – the co-worker has been married x amount of years, to their husband or wife. It may also be known that they have so many siblings. Their parents may or may not be dead, and one may even know their age, and even when they were born, when their anniversary is. These though are only just shallow details. Nothing more. Certainly nothing more. All anyone knows about each other, except for those rare occasions, where one knows a bit more. One knows more shallow details before they discover some more interesting parts of the entire person. They learn of past traumatic experiences, love moments, old habit’s, something that is both embarrassing or something vulnerable. A piece of information that could shatter their entire character – or at least the very foundations of it.
Surely teachers in the elementary level will surely be able to discuss their own thoughts and observations, as they had witnessed the development of the character. As can parents and other relatives who had witnessed the developing character. They can discuss such matters like: “[such and such] was such a sensitive child. They were also a little bit on the shy side. Quiet, with a melancholic expression, as if always slightly preoccupied with the time, and when he would be able to see his mother again. It really is perplexing to think how he came to be what he turned out to be.” Or something along those lines. Everyone can reveal just the smallest of information about oneself. However that information is not, something that needs to be expressed out loud. Or for the most part something that does not inherit the concept or being something that needs to be the general knowledge of the public.
Allan Hollinghurt’s new novel “The Strangers Child,” one that has been grappled onto the stage, demanded to be recognized as more than just a foot note of a great book of the year two thousand and eleven. Alan Hollinghurst himself had won the Galaxy Notational Book Awards, winning the Author of the Year Award. “The Strangers Child,” was long listed for the Booker Prize of two thousand and eleven and was controversially omitted from the shortlist. An outcry came from the literary establishment, and the public – or at least the public that cared. Sir Michael Holroyd, an English biographer, had even mentioned “The Strangers Child,” as one of his favourite – and one of the best books; of two thousand and eleven. Despite the book prize snub of “The Strangers Child,” Alan Hollinghurst with his perfectly honed poetic sentences, and the subtle, and stealthy show what real beautiful prose looks like. No “weak blond prose,” as Nabokov would have put it, can be seen throughout this book by Alan Hollinghurst. Everything works in unison, and like a symphony there is a general sense of harmony, to the way everything moves together, in a perfect waltz.
The novel opens up like most novels. But right away one can see certain hints. Just those slight wisps of gestures. The slip ups, and tiny twists, that one can see in the time frame are not by any means considered normal. The novel opens up, in the Golden Afternoon of the Edwardian Era of the United Kingdom. Reading this first part was something felt just like Saki’s stories. There was the grasping and gesture of the entire era. The garden parties, the dinner parties, the eccentric guests, the late Victorian manners still being observed. So on and so forth. Yet what I enjoyed most about this part of the novel was Alan Hollinghursts ability to capture the leisurely feeling of the world. A sense, of great peace, and nothing will take that away. The Great British Empire, was at the top of its game. Nothing was going to topple such a mighty empire. It was a feeling of peace, and leisure – at least for those who could afford it or where born in such a class of luxuries.
Yet even in this class boundaries themselves, there is something strikingly same throughout all of the characters. That same characteristic is that of what it means to be human. Disappointment, infatuation, mortality, envy – it is all that makes these characters human, and keeps them so close together, even past the class boundaries of the English society and this English novel.
The novel opens up with the introduction of the two major important characters of this novel – but also the infatuation and the love story that would follow along after this part of the book is done. The secrets in this first part of this story – the sense of betrayal in some moments and the absolute decadence of the very subject of this novel.
Then time takes its toll after the first part of this novel. The Great War happened, and the nymphomaniac subject – Cecil Valance, has died in the Great War. His famous poem that he wrote for one of the main characters becomes something of an English classic. Quoted by Churchill, and his mother, made a cult about this mediocre poet. Even though Cecil Valance is dead, he is the one who continues to be the main focus of this novel. But what comes from hereafter this point is something both extremely amazing to read, but also sad to watch the passage of time makes its point.
I myself consider the first part of this book foreshadowing, what will come of the rest of the book in certain ways. The clandestine affair of Daphne and Cecil – bit also the inappropriate (based on time period) love and admiration that Cecil and George Sawle – Daphne’s older brother, studying at Cambridge, where he met Cecil, and who acquaints both Cecil and Daphne together. This begins a long affair of time, and disappointment, and how two families had begun to merge in and out of each other like two streams, or rivers overlapping each other, later down the line; only to fall out once again, and go their own directions. However they remain close to each other, whether or not they care for the company or not.
With Cecil’s death, both Daphne and George Sawle had moved on. George married a woman – though it would be appropriate to see the marriage as dull, listless, and more of a business partnership in their academic careers; while Daphne married Dudley Cecil’s brother, who was also in the war, and afterwards is noted for his eccentric parties, redecorating and refurnishing Corley Court, to his own mothers dismay, but he also noted for his fits of rage and uncontrollable anger.
From this marriage Daphne had two children and only two children, Corinna and Wilfred, both suffer their father’s uncontrollable rage, and his odd and sudden mood swings – just like their mother. It is in this time frame, that a admirer (and a man who had a secret loving eye for Cecil) decides to write a biography about the mediocre narcissistic poet, whose selfishness, and decadence has all been pushed aside, as the young poet is now placed up as an English War Poet, and a classic of that dark and troublesome time. All over his poem “Two Acres,” written for Daphne has become engrained in the English society. Cecil and Dudley’s mother can only use this to her dead son’s advantage, by getting a biographer in, she can then further push her son’s fame further. Immortalize him. However, she will of course censor anything that may damage her martyr of a son. Including any notion of his overtly sexual affairs – male or female.
Moving along then, one comes to meet the shady, somewhat of a cretin really in his later literary pursuits, among other things. But as we first meet, the young man, Paul, who works in a bank. He has a huge infatuation on a fellow co-worker. He works under Corinna (now an adult, also a strict and unsympathetic pianist) is married to Paul’s boss. This is the first time, which Paul comes into contact with Daphne as well as his one time lover Peter. So begins the latter half of the book, and what would slowly and surely be the disappointment and demise of all the characters in one way or another. Family secrets – old and new; come into light. It all ends miserably.
The passage of time however shows itself with each new part of the novel. Each new scene, each new act – the passage becomes clearer, in the deaths and the ageing of the character. What becomes clearer than anything else, throughout the novel, is it is more than just about the decline of the characters; it shows the decline of The Great British Empire.
However, at times, the novel would feel more, genuine at times, if it wasn’t for all the gay characters, from Cecil Valance (who though seems more interested in having sex more or less all the time with either gender) to Hubert Sawle, a minor character – and by minor very minor; to everyone in between. It is a realization that Alan Hollinghurst, is a homosexual, and often classified, as a “gay writer,” however with “The Strangers Child,” Alan Hollinghurst has proven himself to be something of a bit more than just a “gay writer,” – he has shown his real talents, at being a novelist tracing the multi-generational tale of two families, and their complicated histories. However part of Alan Hollinghurst cannot break that tie, or break that entire identity of being just a “gay writer,” be he has shown himself to be something greater, with this novel, and hopefully in a few more years – he is not known for his productivity; that he will once again give another book, that will further show his talents as a writer.
Another peculiar moment of this book is just the ending, when Hubert’s letters to his friend and lover Harry, are discovered, and are read, and then are just ended there, as if nonchalantly then it becomes somewhat, of an odd note to leave off on.
Yet to leave with just that end would also be an odd place to just leave a blog. In retrospect Alan Hollinghurst may have started off, as just a “gay writer,” and in fact, homosexuality as a whole is a large part of his book. However, with this novel Alan Hollinghurst has moved past that, and is continuing to show his maturation, as a writer.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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