Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger's Child

It’s been a long wait for Hollinghurst fans, since the release of The Line of Beauty in 2004 elevated our man from highly regarded stylist to Booker Prize-winner and bestseller, with TV adaptations to follow. So what has changed? Hollinghurst’s style was already too developed to be significantly altered, and The Stranger’s Child doesn’t suggest that he has been tempted to experiment. Instead, he has attempted to broaden the scope of his writing. His most successful novels, The Line of Beauty and The Swimming Pool Library have explored a particular period of time, using an individual character to explore the zeitgeist. Now, he plots the course of two families through the twentieth century, tracing strands of a secret history through three generations, all linked by their relationship to a poem.

As A.S. Byatt did in Possession Hollinghurst explores the way in which changing contexts can alter the meaning of literature, and the use of dead authors to exemplify apparently contradictory cultural modes. We are first introduced to Cecil Valance, a wealthy young Cambridge poet, holidaying with his middle-class friend George Sawle in his suburban home, Two Acres. His entrance into the home transforms the lives of the Sawles, who are all intrigued by him in their own ways. So far, so Brideshead Inverted. Whilst at Two Acres, Cecil composes a poem, which becomes a symbol of a lost Britain after its author’s death in the First World War. The remainder of the novel tracks the lives of the Sawles and Valances over the course of the century, as the families are bound together by their attachment to Cecil, and the fight for ownership of the poem between individual family members and critics who wish to claim Cecil as a symbol of doomed Edwardian youth, a military hero or a homosexual icon.

As you would expect, Hollinghurst’s prose is a joy to read. He is excellent on the subtleties of social interaction. As ever, there is a strong sense of gay identity in the writing, and the author explores the ways in which notes and poems are used to create a kind of intimacy which would not be socially or even legally acceptable before 1967. All characters have their secrets, and these are revealed in the dark, whether by playing footsie under a dinner table, or enjoying illicit cigars after the meal. Strands of culture and taste are carefully wound throughout the novel’s five sections. As ever with Hollinghurst, identification with the past is a crucial signifier, and characters ally themselves with subcultural groups through shared tastes.

Hollinghurst is well known for his party set-pieces, most notably the Fedden’s country house affair in The Line of Beauty, graced by Prime Minister Thatcher. In The Stranger’s Child, there are a number of similar scenes, but there is a melancholy undertone to the affair. Cecil’s appearance at Two Acres undercuts pre-war innocence by pitting the Sawles against each other for his favour. In the second book, the people who knew Cecil gather at the Valances’ ancestral home to meet with his first biographer. The moonlight creates a carnivalesque atmosphere as the guests spill out into the grounds, but the night-time holds horrors for those who have known comrades to fall to sniper fire. A frantic tone takes hold, as Cecil’s brother drinks and plays at the Pianola, in a scene reminiscent of Waugh’s Vile Bodies.

The middle sections of the novel have a strong tone of decay, as Cecil’s memory is fought over, and those who survived him find their circumstances reduced. Marriages break up, homes are converted into schools, grounds are sold off, the characters retreat to the suburbs. Meanwhile, strong, athletic Cecil is memorialised in marble, but his hands become ‘girlish’, and his poetic talent is traduced. The characters are battered by modernity, and we see the impact of the end of an era on the individuals. For Hollinghurst, however, traces of the past remain; there is a gradual sense of the hidden gay culture of the pre-war period being revived. The formerly idle rich are reinvented as dons and writers, and these relics of a bygone age re-emerge with dignity intact.

The subtext of the novel explores the way in which literary history can be distorted by the vested interests of relatives and biographers. We see intimate notes destroyed, and facts twisted to suit the prejudices of researchers. The necessary secrecy of gay culture is problematised, as the notes and coded symbols may be hidden or overlooked. This is exceptionally well handled by Hollinghurst, who is expert in drawing meaning from flippant asides and dealing with nuances in tone and phrasing.

This is a broad and ambitious work, especially for a novel which can be seen advertised in train stations. The story may appear simple at face value, but the author’s craftsmanship creates levels of depth and meaning for every reader. This may not be the novel to make you fall in love with Alan Hollinghurst, but it does cement his position as a major figure in modern literature, a writer who can create sculpted text which is never less than readable.

Suggested Further Reading:
For readers who are interested in the gay subcultural elements of this novel, I strongly recommend Neil Bartlett’s Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall. Brideshead Revisited shares certain levels of scope and tone. The themes of disputed literary history are explored in AS Byatt's Possession and also Peter Ackroyd's fantastically enjoyable novel Chatterton.