You can generally tell a lot about a book from its title. Alan Hollinghurst's title is no exception — The
Stranger's Child does not refer to a mysterious appearance or disappearance or any kind of plot exertion. It is a reference to Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'. And like Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' it uses the death of a young man to spark off an enquiry into the effects of time.
Split into five parts, The Stranger's Child hops forward every quarter of a century or so, to go from 1926 to 2008. In this span of time we are treated to meditations on: gay sexuality and the coming-out of it, war-time poetry, business of literary criticism, the fall and decay of the aristocratic British class, architectural trends, and society at large as a model of instability.
All this is based on a single event that Hollinghurst brings out in all its nuances and associative glory: the visit at Two Acres of the celebrated young poet at Cambridge, Cecil Valance, heir to Corley Court. Before he leaves, Cecil pens a poem titled 'Two Acres'. Soon afterward, a German sniper fells him. The question of whether Cecil really wrote it for young Daphne or for her brother George is to haunt not just the siblings but biographers for the century to follow.
This is a wry and amusing novel but with little heart, since Hollinghurst offers us different characters at different periods in time, not necessarily pivotal to them. We encounter Daphne, her children, and the gay young men who would be the biographers of Cecil. Equally important as characters in the novel are the paraphernalia of aristocratic life that are in slow decline. The Stranger's Child begins as a country house novel but the world dissipates until it leaks out only through a peek of Gothic — via cracks in the paneling, lost paintings in the toilet, letters burned. It is no coincidence that Hollinghurst leaves us with a kind of vulgar treasure hunt for period gear by a 21st century bookseller. Surprisingly, for a writer of Hollinghurst's talent, he leaves us with little more.
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Split into five parts, The Stranger's Child hops forward every quarter of a century or so, to go from 1926 to 2008. In this span of time we are treated to meditations on: gay sexuality and the coming-out of it, war-time poetry, business of literary criticism, the fall and decay of the aristocratic British class, architectural trends, and society at large as a model of instability.
All this is based on a single event that Hollinghurst brings out in all its nuances and associative glory: the visit at Two Acres of the celebrated young poet at Cambridge, Cecil Valance, heir to Corley Court. Before he leaves, Cecil pens a poem titled 'Two Acres'. Soon afterward, a German sniper fells him. The question of whether Cecil really wrote it for young Daphne or for her brother George is to haunt not just the siblings but biographers for the century to follow.
This is a wry and amusing novel but with little heart, since Hollinghurst offers us different characters at different periods in time, not necessarily pivotal to them. We encounter Daphne, her children, and the gay young men who would be the biographers of Cecil. Equally important as characters in the novel are the paraphernalia of aristocratic life that are in slow decline. The Stranger's Child begins as a country house novel but the world dissipates until it leaks out only through a peek of Gothic — via cracks in the paneling, lost paintings in the toilet, letters burned. It is no coincidence that Hollinghurst leaves us with a kind of vulgar treasure hunt for period gear by a 21st century bookseller. Surprisingly, for a writer of Hollinghurst's talent, he leaves us with little more.
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