BRITAIN: Hollinghurst's Déjà vu probably best expressed the mood as Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, a satirical social comedy of 1980s England in the reign of Thatcher, was last night pronounced winner of this year's Man Booker Prize, writes Eileen Battersby Literary Correspondent
Déjà vu, that is for those who have read Hollinghurst's previous three novels, particularly The Folding Star, itself Booker shortlisted in 1994. He is a writer committed to chronicling the gay experience within narratives of satiric political and social observation.
Aside from the suspicion that Hollinghurst (50) has appealed to the populist lobby with a breezy sitcom-like romp populated by a host of largely middle class cartoon characters, his win yet again confirms British fiction's lingering obsession with the Thatcher years.
Many literary critics considered Colm Tóibín's The Master as the obvious winner almost from the day of its publication, although the Bookie's favourite had tended to be David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, the only contender to weigh in at marginally longer than Hollinghurst's 501 pages.
Since the publication of the long list on August 26th, Tóibín, and his two English rivals, Mitchell and Hollinghurst, always appeared a likely trio. All three of these writers have previously been shortlisted, all three enjoyed good reviews. Once the second long listed Irish writer, Ronan Bennett failed to make the final six with his profound allegory, Havoc in Its Third Year, a dramatic period study set in 17th century Puritan England, it seemed the Booker settled into a three way battle. And it did.
Little more than token nods were given to the other nominees, Sarah Hall and Gerard Woodward - both English, and South African poet and novelist Achmat Dangor. As the dust settles it may seem churlish to question Hollinghurst's success with a novel that too long, very complacent and unoriginal at the expense of Tóibín whose novel, based on the life of Henry James, is an extraordinary achievement and an endorsement of fiction writing as art.
But last night's result replicates the bizarre decision to award the 1986 Booker to Kingsley Amis's The Old Devils at the expense of Kazuo Ishiguro's elegiac An Artist of the Floating World, or that night in 1984 when Anita Brookner's Hotel Du Lac took the prize ahead of J.G.Ballard's Empire of the Sun.
But the suggestion that the appeal of Hollinghurst's is part of an emerging liberal trend which makes its sexual content more acceptable than it was 10 years ago, when he was shortlisted for The Folding Star, overlooks the very real fact that writing about the gay experience is a marginal pursuit. US writers such as Edmund White, David Leavitt and Michael Cunningham have been for 20 years creating bodies of work that have placed the gay experience firmly within mainstream literary fiction. There is nothing new about The Line of Beauty, nor about the reactions it stimulates.
Claims have been made for Hollinghurst's elegant prose which one English reviewer described as "dainty" yet The Line of Beauty is written in a language not far removed from the clever, explicit campus novel genre so well plodded by an earlier generation of English writers such as the late Malcolm Bradbury and David Lodge, who failed to make this year's long list with Author! Author!, his homage to Henry James.
It is true that whereas David Mitchell's novel of six stories unfolding one by one, from the past, the merging present and the future, at least Hollinghurst's book is a sustained narrative. Politics, lazy politicians, snobbery, AIDS, gay sex and lots of it, sexual banter and penis measurements supplies the material of The Line of Beauty. The central character, clever, smug, aspiring Nick Guest, has embarked on a quest to find his place in a social world that he was not born into.
His adventures unfold largely through his sexual encounters as the novel is arranged in three acts. It is a narrative of chat, parties, sexual intrigue and sexual tension. Many of the gags announce themselves well in advance. Hollinghurst luxuriates in a narrative that does not have to be so long and is not as good as his previous three, particularly his excellent debut, The Swimming Pool Library (1988).
One of the sharpest comic moments occurs when the lazy politician, Gerald, and his wife are presented with a painting. Gerald "stared earnestly at the picture, hoping someone would say what it was." Later the same character hosts a party at which the PM, the Iron Lady herself, attends. Resplendent in a heavily embroidered white jacket, Thatcher is hailed by some as a sexual icon as she stands surrounded by adoring middle-aged men. The punch line thuds, loud and clear when a younger observer decides she looks like a country and western singer.
Few Booker judgements in its 35 years history have been right, both Coetzee victories were. But many have been wrong, if none quite as wrong as last night's when the best book, the best book by the proverbial mile, The Master, lost out to a lesser work by a writer with none of Tóibín's flair, subtle artistry or on this performance, profundity.