The Spell

Alex travels down to Dorset for a weekend visit to his old boyfriend Justin, who is now ensconced in an idyllic English cottage with his new lover Robin. It’s a rather daunting prospect for the rather shy and introverted Alex. Joining the three for the weekend is Robin’s son Danny. The weekend itself proves relatively uneventful, but in the months that follow the four mens’ lives become intertwined in an evolving, and sometimes revolving, relationship.“The Spell” has the air of an Edwardian bed-hopping farce about it, although the setting is very 1980s, in the early days of clubs and club drugs. It was also a time when gay men were still largely confined to their own little world, so it’s not such an unbelievable stretch that our four main characters seem to move in circles where everyone seems to know, and often slept with, everyone else.The characters may sound a bit shallow and self-centered, but they’re not nearly so one-dimensional. They are, at least at times, conscious of the situations they find themselves in and often display a bit of normal introspection. Like most of us, they’re just looking for someone to share their life with.The characters are not only well drawn, but they’re described in a rather neutral fashion that allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. Different readers will identify with different characters, and it’s likely that your view of the way the various plot lines resolve themselves, or don’t, will be different than other readers.In some ways, “The Spell” is a book of possibilities. People come into our lives, and sometimes we think they’re “the one” for us. Sometimes we’re right, and sometimes we’re wrong. Relationships between people of different ages can be difficult, but sometimes they do work out. Older doesn’t necessarily mean wiser, nor does being young automatically make someone immature. The characters in this book display all of these typically human traits.If it’s so good, why three and a half stars? Well, while the writing is very good, the story just didn’t hit the mark in the end, for me. As discussed above, different readers will have very different reactions. Some, I know, will love it. Others, not so much.

Enjoyed it from start to finish. Don't understand the disparaging reviews. It's not "boring", it's engaging. I wanted to understand, and learn more about what happend to, each of the four principal characters, as I moved through the book. Of course it's well-written -- it's by Alan Hollinghurst. It doesn't have the depth of, say, "The Swimming-Pool Library", with its nested story of Lord Nantwich, and it doesn't span decades and generations, like "The Stranger's Child" (and the truly boring "The Sparsholt Affair"), but it was very satisfying. If you enjoy Hollinghurst, don't miss it!

I found a handful of typos. Or rather, the text has not been properly scanned. Hollinghurst, a meticulous, punctilious writer and former TLS editor, would be shocked. Can I get my money back?Otherwise, an excellent introduction to Hollinghurst's novels: this one, his third and shortest of six, encapsulates many of the themes and character types of his later novels that are more than 500 pages in length. Sad to say his frequent depictions of gay sex, honest and spontaneous, and central to The Spell, tend to dissipate in the last two novels (self-censorship?)

Beautifully written prose by Hollinghurst describes the loves and betrayals of 3 gay men. How each cope and their feelings toward each other as they meet on a weekend. Two are ex-lovers and we find a contrived weekend merely to compare loves. It's cruel and Justin is cruel. Robbin is hot. Alex is dumped and lonely.Hollinghurst manages to illicit emotions and feelings from the smallest things in life and encapsulate them and uses them to describe how a little stream, dust motes in the air all of these wreak havoc with Alex, a man who has had his heart broken. He tries to move forward but doesn't have the fortitude. Then he meets Danny a 21 year old. They fall madly in love. Tender, touching story of journey of the unsure older man and the a younger man in love, lust and life.Found the book captivating and full of pathos, hate, love and misunderstanding. All the things that I love in a gay love story. The loves and lives of gays seems to me to be beautiful and cruel at the same time....especially in The Spell.

I've read all three of Hollinghurst's novels and must be the only one who thinks The Folding Star was his best, this the next best, and his first, Swimming Pool Library, the least enjoyable. It is a pleasure to read a book that one doesn't constantly feel compelled to edit in one's mind as one is reading it. Hollinghurst's style is lyrical, with a descriptive economy more typical of poetry than of prose. His descriptions of sex, moreover, are more true to life than most writers provide, without, in my view, becoming pornographic. Likewise, the standout aspect of this novel, it seems to me, is Hollinghurst's dead-on description of the interaction of ecstasy (the drug, not the concept) and music. I would not have thought it possible to capture that experience so well in writing. Also welcome is the interaction among this book's three generations of characters, which reflects the interesting ability that gay life sometimes has, contrary to certain stereotypes, to cross age boundaries. All that said, the characters are not terribly interesting, this novel fails to exhibit the skillful manipulation of multiple plot lines that characterized his previous two, and, again in sharp contrast to his prior two novels, the end of The Spell is a bit of a disappointment. Nevertheless, I sped through it with pleasure.

Having read all of Hollinghurst's 'big' books, I came to this one belatedly, and didn't find it quite as powerful. The plot seems, on the surface, non-existent - two youngish and two older gay men swap partners as they move back and forth from a Dorset country cottage to London's gay, drugs, disco scene. On the other hand, I suppose the development and destruction of human relationships is the ultimate plot, and the reader is constantly bumping into unexpected, almost overlooked, moments or wit, beauty or pathos. But at the end of the day, Alan Hollinghurst could write the instructions for your washing machine, and the writing would hold you 'Spell'-bound (geddit?) to the end. By the way, London's gay, drugs, disco scene is about as far removed from my life as a tent on the steppes of central Asia - was it really like that? But I went with Alex on a strange, mad, dizzying ride through this world. The spell cast by drugs was as incomprehensible to me as the spell cast by Danny - but ( maybe for that reason) utterly riveting.

Although as beautifully written as all his other books , I just kept getting mixed up with the 4 characters in the book, read all the others first , not bad , just not as good , but head and shoulders above othe gay literature

Hollinghurst can write, but he's stuck in a world where gay men let their little head do the thinking for their big head.

Full of his usual perceptiveness and beautiful writing - and has a lovely idea for a parlour game; but the plot is just the dreary matings of some stereotypical gays and the painful aftermath. Save your money and wait for a return to form in the next book.

Fast delivery and a free Bookmark. Very thoughtful.