The Sparsholt Affair

Alan Hollinghurst’s novel THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR covers three generations of fiends who meet at Oxford in 1940. It ends in the present day in a world of i-phones, body tattoos, same-sex marriage, children from sperm donors, etc. parents, etc. These characters go to war, marry, divorce, remarry, have children; and some of them die.At the heart of this long sprawling novel (454 pages) is David Sparsholt, a handsome, athlete, with whom everyone is taken when he arrives at Oxford in October, 1940. He of course is the Sparsholt in the title of the book. The Sparsholt affair crops up again and again and takes on different meanings throughout the novel. One of the things so fascinating about the book is that for the most part we see David through the eyes of other characters: Freddie Green, Evert Dax, Johnny et al.The book is a mirror of the changing attitudes of the British public toward the LGBT community in the past 75 years. Although we read page after page filled with eroticism, the sex is always subtle. The entire second section of the novel “The Lookout” is filled with a young man’s longing in beautifully understated language. Some examples from the first two sections: “There was a careless glimpse of his sex in the open slit of his pyjamas.” Or “he was knee-to-knee with the man he adored.” And “His wet underpants hinted at transparency.” It is refreshing to see that sometimes less is more. (I can name two or three well-respected novelists on this side of the Atlantic who could take a lesson from Mr. Hollinghurst.)The author is a master of giving the reader a complete richly detailed description of someone or something in a sentence or two: One character’s “oiled forelock fell over his left eye in a ragged comma.” And in a restaurant “white napkins stood lop-eared in the wine glasses.” A woman’s face is “more intelligent than beautiful.”One of the qualities of good fiction (for me at least) is the writer’s ability to remind us of things we have thought about but not voiced. Mr. Hollinghurst does this again and again and always beautifully. One character “felt the pang of regret that came before leaving a place he would never see again.” (This is in the context of traveling to a new place.) Then the character is returning to his hometown for the last time: “Johnny strolled on, with an uncanny sense of knowing this town in a thousand details, the past showing through the present, [magnificent] and of being on the brink of saying goodbye to it forever.” And in that same town “here nothing had changed but the seasons.” And one more: After another character retires, he has “suddenly purposeless days.”THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR is not for the lazy reader. New characters show up in this dense novel; others disappear. But the novel is most certainly worth sticking with since Mr. Hollingshurst ultimately brings his narrative to a poignant, compelling conclusion. He adroitly captures the lives of gay men, from the longing of adolescence to the acceptance of old age.

Alan Hollinghurst is one of the best novelists of our age, but this, sadly, is probably one of his weakest works. His almost Jamesian eye and insight is at play here of course and there's many a delicious fine turn of phrase, however his ability to hew characters to their unforgettable essences and make you love them in spite of their flaws is muffled and diffuse in this overly sprawling meander from World War II to the present.Peopled with a huge cast of characters, many having the same name, and with entirely too many ambiguous pronouns in shifting scenery through all the different eras, I found myself getting lost and then having to back up multiple pages to find out exactly what was being done or said to whom, and where. Don't get me wrong, a visit to Hollinghurst-land is always worth the effort, but that special care one always expects from Hollinghurst, where each character becomes etched in your conciousness to be carried with you always is missing--and I wouldn't have minded another 200 pages or so to get to know all these tantalizing characters a little bit better and more in depth. I feel as though I made a brief visit, and not as though these people had become, as the author can so wonderfully do when he wants to, the friends and family you want to know and love and carry around in your memory forever.

Epic story that basically presents the arc of gay history from the 1940s to 2012. The delicious core of the book (for me, at least) is the gorgeous and sweeping language that author Hollinghurst brings to both narrative and dialogue. The storyline is full of tease, suggestion and missing pieces which gives the reader work to do in filling in conclusions for broken off interactions (some sexual and physical) and gaps in time, as characters mature out of the story.The Sparsholt of the title could be David--introduced as an ambiguous sex symbol early on in the book, or his son, Johnny who dominates most of the story's second half and certainly represents totally unambiguous acceptance of his sexuality. For me there was little doubt that Johnny is the book's true protagonist and represents the product of the arc of progress.Author Hollinghurst is currently enjoying a lot of admiring attention for this novel and for its predecessors. He truly deserves the spotlight for the body of work that he's produced that marches the beauty of the English language up and down the runway in a way that few others can match."The Sparsholt Affair" is a memorable book and will likely lead new readers to the author's earlier works.

I thought "Sparsholt" was well written, but I didn't think it was especially interesting. While I enjoyed the first part that took place at Oxford at the dawn of WWII, I often found the novel dragged. Some of the action was too nuanced -- on occasion, I had to go back and try to figure out what just happened. David Sparsholt is almost a cipher in the novel -- peoples' lives somehow revolve in his shadow, but he doesn't appear central or particularly vibrant to the story line.

The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst begins in the 1940’s at Oxford University. Two young men are attracted to ‘a new man’ David Sparsholt observed and encouraged by a fellow student, Freddie Green. The character of this man and his companions is brilliantly drawn so that we know and are avid to find out how those friendships develop. Suggestions that David Sparsholt, despite bringing his fiancé to the college, is not as he appears are made clear. He is indebted to Evert Dax but is sketched naked by Peter Coyle, the rivals for his affection. Even before this section of the novel ends we learn that it is a memoir found amongst Freddie Green’s papers after his death. The superior, snobbish attitudes of that section of society are evoked with great skill plus details of place and time such as the smell of dust on a two bar electric fire.The rest of the book is third person narration through the eyes of Johnny, the son of David Sparsholt. In 1965 we follow him for one day as a teenager, already losing himself in drawing with knowledge that he is gay. He admires and wishes to impress his father who became a hero during WW2 winning the DFC, followed after the war with financial success setting up his own company. Exactly the nature of the Affair which is hinted at here and is made reference to throughout the rest of novel, is never made entirely clear. The reader has to guess what might have incurred a prison sentence and the kind of disgrace which means that people pick up on the name for many years to come. The actual scandal is never made explicit. I would like to have known more, though realise that this wasn’t the point of the novel. In reality people don’t know the facts of a case merely surmise from press reports.Johnny having left art college enters into the gay life circling Evert Dax who holds court over a household of adoring hangers-on in London. He is unaware of his father’s connection with this man.The novel goes forward to find him a successful portrait artist and father in the fourth part, and finally as an older man having lost his partner in the fifth.This is a marvellous novel that has left me with vivid recollections of different periods of time, an absolute knowledge of the characters involved. The brilliance of the writing, the turn of phrase, the breadth of language is hard to convey when summarising the plot. I highly recommend this book which I will lend but require to be returned as I’ll want to read it again.

On reading the reviews I expected this book to be one I could not put down. However it was one which felt that it dragged on with the same theme throughout. It would have been better to have more on the history instead of leaping through the decades. It did however give an insight to how people who were gay felt to be marginalized by so called "appropriate" society and the good old days. Thankfully things have changed for the better and people no longer judge on a person's sexuality.

Truly one of Hollinghurst's most beautiful books; as with all his writing, he makes you feel as if you are there, part of the crowd of people. This one moves from Oxford in the war years, to the present year (give or take) with sheer effortlessness and the characters are captivating and encompassing in an enigmatic way. It is not as sexually explicit as some of his works either, but there is a tenderness to it which plays on your imagination. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The Sparsholt Affair is a gay sex scandal which takes place just before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. It is frequently referred to in the novel but never fully elaborated. The drama moves episodically from Oxford in 1940 to the present day, following the lives of a group of students and their offspring in a formula used successfully by the author in The Stranger's Child, encompassing a variety of relationships in the world of literature and fine art and ranging from surrogate parenthood to the gay dad/son dynamic, the latter no doubt a reflection of where the author finds himself today. Well-written and deserving of adaptation for the screen, it remains a credit to Hollinghurst that he has not abandoned the novel in favour of the screenplay.

It just drags & drags & drags!

An excellent read. Beautifully constructed prose and well thought out story line. I've read severala Hollingsworth novels and this is the best yet. Loved it.

A complex web of human experience centres around an event that threads its way through the entire narrative but never fully reveals itself. I could not put this down. A must for anyone interested in the changing milieu for gay people in the 20th century

Powerful thread running through with great insights into the mystery of each character, a real people book accepting, in the main, the reality of a gay life, even when half hidden

All fine

Loses momentum after the Oxford years and becomes flat and tidious

Sorry but just rather dull - too much day to day description of trivia in first 100pages - couldn't get interested so gave up - despite it being our bookclub selection!

A wonderful ride, full of well-crafted awkwardness, humor and tragedy.

Great book by a great writer

An epic, though a little long at times. Such incredibly well developed male characters, though less so the women.

Love the first couple of chapters, then just got bored for the rest of the book.