About this title: Alan Hollinghurst's new novel is a comedy of sexual manners that follows the interlocking affairs of four men: Robin Woodfield, an architect in his late forties, who is trying to build an idyllic life in Dorset with his younger lover, Justin, a would-be actor increasingly disenchanted with the countryside; Robin's 22-year-old son Danny, a volatile beauty who lives for clubbing and casual sex; and the shy Alex, whose life is transformed by house music and a tab of ecstasy. As each in turn falls under the spell of romance or drugs, country living or rough trade, a richly ironic picture emerges ...
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Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Fine. Almost in new condition. Book shows only very slight signs of use. Cover and binding are undamaged and pages show minimal use. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780140286373ISBN:0140286373
Description: New. Clean, crisp & tight, never read. Slight fold on bottom right corner of cover. Some shelf wear and tanning. Books may have a remainder mark on bottom of text block. read more
Description: Good. -Paperback-Cover shows some shelf-wear. Hotel related notes written on back free endpaper. --Used-Good. Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Description: Good. 0140286373 New book that could have a shelf wear, bump, small tear, or sun faded pages. Has remainder mark. Ships within 1 business day and customer satisfaction is our #1 priority. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780670883561ISBN:0670883565
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. 0670883565 Minor dot stain to foreedge. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780099276944ISBN:0099276941
Description: New. Clean, crisp & tight, never read. NO-remainder mark! Various creases on front cover. Tanned pages. Books may have a remainder mark on bottom of text block. read more
Edition: First edition. first ameican edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Books
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780670883561ISBN:0670883565
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 257 p. Audience: General/trade. very fine near new printed on acid-free paper read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780099276944ISBN:0099276941
Description: Very Good. * BOOKS DISPATCHED WITHIN 24 HOURS * SATISFACTION GUARANTEED * ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED PROMPTLY * SHIPPED FROM UK * USA DELIVERY IN 3-5 DAYS * SHIPPED FROM UK: USA & EUROPE SPECIALISTS DELIVERY IN 3-5 DAYS. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780099276944ISBN:0099276941
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780701165192ISBN:0701165197
Description: Good. This book is in GOOD overall condition. It shows signs of having been read and has general light wear to the cover, spine and pages. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780670883561ISBN:0670883565
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. 0670883565 First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. All books shipped with archive-safe mylar-wrapped DJ. Fine copy in Fine DJ. Remainder marked on bottom of pages but otherwise an as-new and unread copy. read more
"Not nearly as good as The Line of Beauty, which is one of my all-time favorites, but still a pretty good book. Hollinghurst is probably my favorite author in the gay literature genre. His stories have great characters, and he is able to capture the most ordinary of interactions, and people's reaction to them, in such an insightful and authenticate way. If you haven't read him yet, I'd start with the Line of Beauty. It is a little dense, but totally worth it."
"Not quite as riveting as The Swimming Pool Library, but still great story-telling and lots of naughty fun. The gay relationships are complex, and the frequency of betrayal occasionally is appalling. Everyone is rich, and handsome, and randy. Not for the faint of heart, and unlikely to win over many straight readers. A perfect end-of-summer gay-boy reading vacation, though. Now back to more serious literature."
"The Spell is a slight book, almost fully concerned with romantic interaction and drug use (and of course the intersection of the two). Three of the four main characters (all are, of course, gay men) aren't likeable, and I guess that's the problem. Sometimes Hollinghurst writes beautiful characters; here he writes ones that are consumed by their flaws. OK I mean one I completely wrote off because he is a goateed '90s stereotype. The one I liked best is Justin, and he is the most broken of all, but is also very funny.
There are a couple of great passages. One concerns the hilarious "homosexual conundrum" of two pant-swatched penises bumping up against one another. The other is the character Alex thinking he is acting unlike himself, deciding that one cannot act other than as oneself, and realizing that in fact he has "visited some distant suburb of his personality." That I loved. And of course I always love when the place names are in London especially when their is a reference to seedy Earl's Court. If only there was a reference to Lamb's Conduit Way."
"This is the third of Hollinghurst's four novels. And from what I can gather , the runt of the lot for quite a few of his readers. Not hard to see why, given what it followed: a brace of densely brilliant novels which permit us to richly inhabit the lyric sensibilities of two very sinuous and engaging first-person narrators (writers are still taking up the gauntlet of Lolita). The Spell, by contrast, flits among a circle of suggestively drawn but necessarily flatter London men. Hollinghurst does the comedy of manners thing superbly, anatomizing with high disabused humor the various nostalgias, jealousies, fears and hopeful fantasies of individuals under different sexual "spells." The prose is cut to a severe standard, burnished to a glow, and made to reverberate epigrammatically; description often shades into aphorism. This is the best English prose of our time. The Spell makes me want to re-read The Line of Beauty, as now it seems the book in which Hollinghurst succeeded in combining his talents for both the subjective surrogate first-person voice and the all-seeing lofty observer, anchoring the narration at a definite point of view, Nick's, while making Nick, because of his anxious, outsider/interloper status, clairvoyantly attentive to the minds and manners of the other characters. I wonder where he'll go next."
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