The Folding Star

An English gay man in his thirties leaves for a Belgian town where he falls for his young student, Luc, the story centering on this obsession. A rover, Edward Manners, the protagonist, never manages to settle, his days are filled with sex escapades, anticipating and planning said escapades, drinking, teaching and pining away. It wasn't until the end did I realize that no one in the book had a happy romantic relationship, the ones that do don't last and everyone is falling for people that can't offer reciprocity. Just like the protagonist, the plot roves and it isn't until tragedy makes Edward return to England that we are able to see a more humane side to the sex-obsessed protagonist with a look into his past and youth and its show more discoveries, angst, love, promise, loss and grief. The strange thing about this book is the characters I really liked are those we get to know little about, and the moments I wanted more of were rather short. But until the end, even when it seems like Edward's obsession will materialize into a settled fulfillment, the pining and longing persists.

Hollinghurst can write, and I mean write. Not a single sentence falls flat. It really is incredible how tight this book was considering how long it is, at some points because of how loathsome some characters were I was looking for that weak point that would make me abandon this book but I couldn't stop reading. I haven't met anyone who writes of cruising scenes and their atmosphere as intensely accurate as Hollinghurst does. Even the individuals in the story were fleshy with how familiar they were, perhaps a contributing reason to why I disliked them so much. show less

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I thought it was excellent. It's been described as halfway between Death in Venice and À la recherche du temps perdu, but I think that's a bit unfair; yes, the central emotional relationship is the narrator's crush on a young boy, but there's a lot of well observed stuff about art, sex, youth, bars, education, the German occupation of Belgium in the second world war, annoying Spanish girls in the neighbouring flat who use up your hot water, and what it's like being an Englishman in his early thirties living in Belgium who has enough Dutch to get by. The narrator knows that his behaviour is foolish, but he is surrounded by other flawed people behaving equally foolishly, and there are dark show more secrets that he does not spot until he is led into them. An intense novel of both the soul and body. Recommended. show less

It is truly a great pleasure to read the book. The narrative exudes humor and poetry, handled with amazing sensitivity and accuracy. It maintains its intellectual poise even during its most sensual moments. Sweaty coupling is interspersed with dry witticisms.

A beautiful, atmospheric novel, set in a Flemish town (a lot like Bruges) in the late 20th-century, with glances back to fin-de-siecle symbolism and the Nazi occupation. The power of the writing itself is astounding. Hollinghurst appears to use all the resources available to him as a writer -- the whole of English. His ability to find just the right word, the right metaphor, whether to describe the sound of water or the subtle shades in a relationship, is remarkable. He is also a very gay writer (in the modern sense of the word), and views the world from a distinctly gay perspective (including very graphic, though beautifully written and psychologically real, sex scenes). But his concerns are bigger and more universal: about the allure show more of beauty and mystery and the fact that all the same we live in a world of reality and compromise. show less

THE FOLDING STAR tells the story of Edward Manners, a sentimentally detached man who leaves England to earn his living as a private language tutor in a Flemish city. The exquisite prose of this 1994 release delineates a man's aching melancholy and longing for love despite his odd sexual economy during the few years prior to his arrival in Belgium. Therefore, unlike the most recent, highly-acclaimed THE LINE OF BEAUTY, the novel affords a plot no more than Edward Manners's hypnotic fantasy of one of his young pupils. The 33-year-old seems to be at the emotional crossroad: he often smiles at his own sense of anticipation, of being poised for change, and is ready to fall in love. But he is not used to spending so much time with one person show more that he thinks of a committed relationship dreads him.

It might be love at first sight that no sooner has he met Luc than he takes an intimate fancy of him. The adoration quickly becomes a morbid infatuation that manifests into a pepperoni type of spying on the boy during his weekend excursion. He has no doubt driven Edward mad at times - he feels empty and is aching for him. The boy has affected everything Edward does to the point that he suffers without feeling afflicted. The stream of consciousness reflects Manners's despair over the unfulfilled love and the thumping of the heart. He can only console himself with other affairs to which no sentiment constitutes, other than the minimal trust of two people pleasuring themselves together, without much grasp of friendship or understanding.

THE FOLDING STAR is about the unrequited love that leaves a man constantly longing, without the prospect of ever finding love. The mixed feelings of anxious longing and fear of commitment constitute a poignant air that hovers over the novel. It delivers the message that the course of true love never runs straight. The reading reminds one of the similar sentimental nuances Henry James experiences in Colm Toibin's THE MASTER. While Henry James consciously makes it a habit to keep his affection at bay and secretly longs for the intimate companion of a man, Edward Manners always finds himself marveling at how his sudden burst of feeling has wrongfooted him. Both engage in a somnambulist journey to find love. The former lives in such vessel of loneliness and independence - in a social sphere that is pinned and stifled with rules. The latter leaves his home to escape the same constraints only to find himself trapped by his emotions. That his sex life has well petered out before he comes to Belgium is the impediment to his surrender to commitment.

THE FOLDING STAR is a stoic tale about the quest for love. Edward Manners lives among many gay men not only in the regard of the longing for a relationship but also in the sense of the nervousness, excitement, sensuality, and anxiety. One may think of the novel being made up of snapshots all these contradicting emotions that roam back and forth the character. It exquisitely depicts the nuances of affection, the anticipation for intimacy, and the desire of fulfillment of unconditional needs. Hollinghurst renders with artistry and haunting precision love's merging of language and lust.

http://mattviews.blogspot.com/2006/02/14-folding-star-alan-hollinghurst.html#lin... show less

In self-imposed exile in an ancient Flemish city, an embittered 33-year-old language tutor, Edward Manners, falls in love with his alluring 17-year-old pupil, Luc Altidore. As Edward pursues the elusive object of his infatuation--and plunges into affairs with two other men--this book interweaves past and present, history and memory, into a tapestry of unfulfillable desire.

I didn't finish this book.

The writing is good, don't get me wrong on that account. I want to read something else by this author, though. The Folding Star manages to be both slow and predictable, with an unhealthy dose of obscure. If I hadn't read some reviews of the book, I wouldn't have known where it took place, or who the narrator was. Really, everything happens inside the narrator's mind, which would be fine if I'd had some context.

Much sooner than I knew anything about the narrator, I knew he would fall for one of his students. It's possible I'm overestimating how much of an angst-bucket the narrator will become, but I don't think so. If I want to wallow in angst, I'll play in an angsty RPG - at least then it's angst I'm writing, show more and doesn't involve children.

I really, really wanted to like this book. But I don't, not enough to slog the rest of the way through it. show less