Hollinghurst's great big epic spans decades touching upon key moments in the life of English actor Dave Win who narrates this novel. He's an English bi-racial gay man who recalls his early life attending a boarding school from the age of 13. His single mother is a working class seamstress and he's never met his Burmese father. In some ways he's a familiar Hollinghurst character in that he's both an insider and outsider as he receives a scholarship which grants him access to an elite education and the social sphere of the middle/upper class. A crucial early scene recounts a visit with the Hadlows, a wealthy liberal family who have sponsored him. But they also have a bullying and detestably snobbish son named Giles who is Dave's contemporary. We follow Dave's progression through school up until his major exams as he gets involved in acting, experiences desire for other boys and navigates various social spheres between family, schoolmates and older men.
This is not a novel which is heavily driven by plot but is more about leisurely following Dave's observations and the social dynamics of the situations he encounters. I think we're encouraged to read between the lines as the characters interact but also as Dave detects the emotional mood/social dynamics of every room he enters. Hollinghurst elegantly describes not only the setting but the complexity of this atmosphere steeped in class sensibility and certain conventions. I heard the author describe in an interview at the Southbank how he intentionally made the first half of this novel slow to mimic the feeling of actually being at school where any developments seem to occur over a long period of time. It is effective in conveying that feeling but it also means there isn't much immediate suspense. It's more about the subtle tensions of Dave's yearning to understand/fulfil his sexual desires (especially amidst this time when homosexuality was being decriminalised in England), engage with culture at the school between music and the theatre and adapt to his mother's changing domestic situation.
Given that Dave is mixed race one of the immediate challenges he continually faces in 1960s Britain is dealing with various levels of racism from passive to aggressively overt. It's shown how exhausting it is that Dave must frequently declare his origins and heritage when he meets someone new. Of course merely replying he's from a particular English county isn't enough because the English people he encounters demand to know where he's “really” from. It's like he must perform being Burmese though he knows little about the country. There's a bitter and humiliating early memory of being told to wear a gaung baung in front of his class. I was also struck by a scene where Dave reads up on Burma from a Western perspective/looking at a map to understand the land where he's partly descended from. One way he deals with pressure concerning his race is to utilize his talent for doing impressions by pretending to be Jeeves, a quintessentially English P.G. Woodhouse character. Making people laugh is an effective strategy used to deflate the tension regarding his racial difference.
Dave's mother Avril is also a fascinating figure and she has an increasingly close relationship to Esme, her benefactor, business partner and lover. The moments of real 'couple' behaviour he oversees/overhears has a sweetly tender quality to it, but there's also a sense of melancholy dismay that they are hesitant to be openly loving in front of Dave. Conversely, Dave does declare his own sexuality though he and his mother share such a loving and mutually-supportive relationship. It's moving following how the women take it in stages towards more openly living as a couple – though some extended family reject them. There's an especially enjoyable section where the trio go to the seaside and Dave becomes attentive to the hidden gay world: the graffiti in the toilet and a local experience at his home where he overhears men arranging a rendezvous from a party line phone call. The connection between mother and son is one of the most compelling aspects of the first half of this novel and I really appreciated the way in which Hollinghurst portrayed Avril's quiet conflicts with great subtlety.
Though it's interesting following the development of Dave's acting career and a number of romantic relationships he becomes involved in over the years, what I found most poignant about the second part of the novel is when he revisits locations from the first part. Hollinghurst captures so well the strange sense of returning to a place that was significant in one's youth. Dave almost seems like a ghost returning to his old neighbourhood, school and home as they retain an emotional charge, but he's become something of an outsider. Taking a boyfriend to his mothers' home and the area he grew up is a bittersweet experience because he's aware that any strangers who view them must assume that Dave is the newcomer to this area and not his white partner. As the years roll by when he returns again to some of these locations the environment itself has changed with many newly opened shops or trees which have grown taller. In addition to piecing together what's occurred in Dave's life as time leaps forward there are also small glimpses into changes in the lives of peripheral characters. The fates and tragedies of these barely glimpsed figures is all the more poignant because of the precision of Hollinghurst's dialogue and how these characters' awkwardly acknowledge loss.
This isn't a criticism of the novel, but it's a bit of a shame that as Dave becomes an adult and moves away to make his own life it means Avril and Esme naturally become less present in the narrative. I wanted to know more about their lives and stories but we're mostly cut off from seeing further developments in their relationship until much later. Instead we only get updates when there are major changes which are nonetheless still poignant to read about. While it makes sense that we continue to follow Dave's narrative I would have liked an additional section giving Avril's perspective to recount the events from her point of view (though this would have made it a very different novel.) Nevertheless, there are several scenes with Avril and separate interactions with characters close to her which provide glimpses into the complexities of her life and position.
Throughout the decades there are also fleeting but persistent encounters with Giles. He seems to represent a kind of foil to Dave's life. Temperamentally Dave would have been more naturally suited to being Mark and Cara's child, but instead they bred conservative twit Giles. I like how the novel quietly interrogates where family is really found – is it with those we're genetically connected to or the family we create? There's a touching moment where Dave finds a photo of his father from 1945 and learns a bit more about his parentage. Though he's been entirely shaped by being raised in England he's indelibly tied to this heritage because it impacts how he's socially accepted in this country and dictates the roles he can play in his profession.
The story also meditates on what drives a politician with grand political ambitions. There's no easy answer for why Giles would be so reactionary (becoming a leading voice in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union) except that he has an inborn sense of entitlement and selfishness. Though some were motivated to vote Leave for economic reasons, Giles and some of his supporters were driven by a desire to 'take back the UK' and keep immigrants out. We see some characters who feel emboldened by his example to voice their beliefs more vociferously. This, in turn, leads to a rise in racism and xenophobia. Although Giles' presence felt a little confusing in the first part of the novel it makes more sense considering the full arc of the book. It's interesting to consider people we've known for the majority of our lives but who we don't necessarily like – yet there is this connection to them and even if we encounter them only sporadically they have this longstanding presence.
I greatly admired the way this novel represents the complexities, contradictions and questions which can be contained in one person's life. It also presents a complex view of transformations in English life over a long stretch of time. I especially liked how the overarching narrative traces connections between different generations and Dave's gradual movement from receptive youth to experienced elder. I'd be eager to reread this novel at some point to tease out answers to certain questions the narrative presents, but I'm sure it will also feel poignant re-experiencing Dave's early years while knowing how the lives of all the major and minor characters play out.
