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The Folding Star: A Novel Hardcover – October 4, 1994

by Alan Hollinghurst (Author)

4.0 269 ratings

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Edward Manners - thirty-three, disaffected, in search of a new life - has come to an ancient Flemish city to teach English. Almost at once he falls in love with one of his pupils, the seventeen-year-old Luc Altidore, recently expelled from school for some mysterious offense. Condemned to a mounting but incommunicable obsession with the boy, Edward becomes involved in affairs with two other men: one a heartless but seductive fraud, the other a young drifter with a deeply possessive streak.
Then Edward is introduced to the world of the enigmatic and reclusive Symbolist painter Edgard Orst. Gradually he is drawn toward an understanding of the artist's own obsession with a famous actress, drowned off Ostend at the turn of the century, and of the ambiguous circumstances of Orst's own death under Nazi occupation.
The events of The Folding Star are played out amid the silent streets and canals of a city that seems locked in the past, and across the northern landscape of out-of-season resorts and abandoned houses that lies beyond. But in the central panel of the novel's triptych Edward returns home for a funeral and is caught up in memories of his own late adolescence and his first love affair: an English pastoral already threatened by the experience of betrayal and loss.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As in his first novel, The Swimming Pool Library, British author Hollinghurst skillfully combines lush details, a reflective voice and erotic depictions of gay life and relationships. Edward Manners, a 33-year-old aspiring British writer, arrives in a Flemish town to work as a private tutor in English, only to find himself obsessively smitten with one of his pupils, Luc Altidore, a 17-year-old expelled from school. Through a second pupil, Manners is also drawn into the world of (fictional) painter Edgard Orst, who died during the Nazi occupation of Belgium and whose paintings depict an infatutation with a red-haired actress. At first, events are presented as clues, and Manners pursues his preoccupation with Luc as if unraveling a mystery. Triptych patterns abound: the reassembling of three panels of an Orst painting, trios of friends and lovers and the three-part structure of this complex, mature and richly textured novel. Meanwhile, AIDS adds shadow to the depths of the contemporary gay relationships portrayed here. The title, taken from Milton, refers to the first evening star; like that bright herald of night, this extraordinary, often darkly funny novel captures our attention.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Hollinghurst's first novel, The Swimming Pool Library (LJ 9/1/88), which offered a somewhat critical look at gay life in pre-AIDS England, received much critical acclaim. This, his second novel, is also likely to receive considerable praise-and excoriation. Its theme is obsession and its object is a 17-year-old Belgian youth, who, just prior to disappearing, is graphically ravished by his 32-year-old English tutor. While Luc is no angel and, in fact, can be seen as the seducer in this incident, the fact that he is a minor (at least by U.S. standards) and Edward his teacher are sure to land the work on more than one banned list. This is too bad, because taken as a whole the novel offers a fascinating, often eloquent look at the nature of desire and the impossibility of making time stand still. There will definitely be an audience for this book, but it will be limited. Larger public and academic libraries should have a copy available. [Finalist for the British Booker Prize.-Ed.]-David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
--David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Sensibility overwhelms narrative in this story of homoerotic obsession, a second novel from the British Hollinghurst (The Swimming-Pool Library, 1988). Pudgy, bespectacled Edward Manners is a 32-year-old gay Englishman just arrived in an unidentified Flemish town, where he will give English lessons to two students, pursue his own ``bits of writing,'' and check out the gay scene--a Continental adventure before the onset of middle age. In short order, he finds a sex partner (Cherif, a hot young Moroccan) and falls in love with one of his students, 17-year-old Luc Altidore, ``a blond Aztec'' expelled from an exclusive Jesuit school for serious truancy. Edward does not declare his love, though his theft of his beloved's underwear is a symptom of his obsession, an obsession he finds paralleled in the life of local Symbolist painter Edgard Orst (18651944) while working on a catalogue for the Orst Museum. Orst became obsessed with a Scottish actress. Though their affair was cut short when she drowned at sea, Orst painted her for the rest of his life. Edward starts to see Luc's eyes as those of an ``Orst temptress''; he is fascinated by the story, appropriately, for he is a pedant/aesthete whose most passionate outburst is reserved for a Muzak rendition of Mozart in a hotel dining room. Edward's cultural and sexual history is detailed further when he returns to England for the funeral of his one great love; as teenagers, they made love beneath Milton's ``folding star.'' All this background is presented well, but by the time it's established, Hollinghurst's story has withered on the vine. His attempts to revive it in the final (Belgian) section, as he ups the ante for Edward and Luc while throwing in revelations about Orst's final days, are unsuccessful. As in his debut, Hollinghurst seeks thematic richness by counterpointing lives from different eras, but here his weakness as a storyteller is even more marked. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

Middle-aged Edward comes to a Flemish city to teach English only to fall in love with one of his pupils and to become involved with an obsessive artist who is playing a dangerous psychological game. Readers who relish psychological depth will find this includes plenty of drama and intrigue. -- Midwest Book Review

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pantheon; First Edition (October 4, 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 422 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679436057
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679436058
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.62 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #570,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #148 in Contemporary British & Irish Literature
- #2,133 in LGBTQ+ Genre Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.0 269 ratings

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4 out of 5

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FD

A five star novel, but kindle edition riddled with typos

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2010

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Beautifully written and evocative novel - other reviewers rightly highlight the strength of Hollinghurst's imagination and descriptive ability. I loved reading it.

But I want to add a note about the Kindle edition which has more than your average number of typos. Not just misspelt words but the occasional incomplete sentence. It rather looks as if they created the Kindle edition by scanning a print edition, and the text recognition software hasn't always worked. Lithograph becomes 'Uthograph' or detail = 'detafl'. These errors aren't spread equally throughout the book; there seems to be sections where there are clusters of mistakes and then it straightens out for a bit.

5 people found this helpful

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William M. Reiter

) It was a generally interesting read but at times felt more like an overtly pornographic novel

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2018

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A bit more emphasis on sex than is usual for Hollinghurst. (I've read all of his novels but realized I had missed this one.) It was a generally interesting read but at times felt more like an overtly pornographic novel. The ending was really not supported by the development in the text.

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2022

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Words words words crowd 437 pages. A good portion of the time I wondered: why am I reading this? The midsection is a flashback to the tutor's youth ....near the end, more layered plotting: W2 erotica between a Nazi and a Belgian boy. My eyes did glaze over. A lot. Reaching the allegorical, parable-like finale, I was rather dizzy from the sex and literary pretensions. Hollinghurst shows how "arty" (and smart?) he can be. Yet, it gets 3-stars for being Too Much. Ya know what I mean? I sincerely hope so.

2 people found this helpful

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Randolph Murphy

For Kindle Edition Only

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2014

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I don't have much to add to the high praise of this book in other reviews. Hollinghurst is one of the greatest masters of English prose living today. So it is ashamed that a book of this high stature should be marred by the Kindle edition. It is rife with misspellings and errors, far too many to mention them here. Someone needs to go over the Kindle edition of this book and make the many corrections needed. I am going to complain to Amazon about this but still give the book 5 stars.

5 people found this helpful

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Butch

So many typographical errors

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2012

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I am always surprised how many typographical errors Kindle books contain. This one is no different. There is a high rate of typo's and grammatical errors. How does this happen with Kindle books and not books in print?

However, this does not degrade the wonderful storytelling of this author.

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Gabe Lemkin

A Stunning Gay Romance

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2021

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This is a seminal gay romance driven by beautiful prose.

2 people found this helpful

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michael saitta

Beautiful writing, bad book

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2017

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I can't believe all the great reviews this book has gotten. Mostly they go on and on about how beautiful his writing is. That is true. The writing is beautiful. But beautiful writing doesn't make a novel. Someone can have talent for applying paint to a canvas but the result does not necessarily create a painting one might enjoy looking at. This book is fascinating but not in a good way. The first half is one story, the second using the main character is another and the final is totally confusing going back to the original story of sexual obsession. The problem is there is no ending. Someone disappears, people search and then nothing. Did he die, was he murdered, were the police ever called, did anybody ever do anything? Ambiguousness has been given a new meaning in this novel. I don't for one minute believe any of the reviewers did nothing more than skim through this book.

3 people found this helpful

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Daniel M. Lane

Terrible kindle edition of excellent novel

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2022

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As other reviews have noted, the Kindle version of this novel has many typographical errors. It looks to me like an entire page is missing. The next to last page number is 436. The last page is 438. I was so puzzled by the ending and this probably is the reason. I have to find a print version to verify.

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David

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on June 10, 2018

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Great book by one of my favourite authors. Simply brilliant.

Dorian Gray

bodies , bums + cocks : a celebration of men , masculinity + homo-sexism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 6, 2018

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The Folding Star is the kind of comic masterpiece Martin Amis might have penned if he were gay
and had a bit more generosity of spirit !
The lyrical descriptions of mood , feelings , landscapes , skies + changing weather are almost as good as Amis's stuff
The cast of characters have his cartoonish quality + yet are more likeable ( and endearing )
Like Amis The Folding Star may have U reaching for U'r dictionary

Martin Amis is ( sexually ) fascinated by women and writes ( literary) novels for hetero-sexual men
Alan Hollinghurst is ( sexually ) fascinated by men and writes (literary) novels for homo-sexual men
endless descriptions of bodies , bums + cocks !!!
dozens of ( virile ) young men all depicted as horny + gagging for it the (w)hole time !
a kind of celebration of men , masculinity + homo-sexism

The Folding Star shows a sexist book can be shortlisted for The Booker Prize
so long as the sexism is homo-sexism
so long as all the sex objects are men
liberal lefty double standards should make any lefty cringe and the rest of us , laugh

patescal

Memories

Reviewed in Spain on February 3, 2018

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The best is is why Edward returns to England for the funeral. Its accounts of Edward growing up, his family, his schooling, his friendships, and the people around him is wonderfully told. Their are any scenes and many reminiscences which could have been written about me.

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Chinnan

Beautifully written but not very fascinating

Reviewed in India on May 13, 2015

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It doesn't make a very compelling story. You can see the beauty but unfortunately it feels very skin deep. The characters were vain and boring.

Mrs G S Taylor

Superb writing, but.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 28, 2019

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I do enjoy Hollingsworth's books, beautifully written and, as in this one, the titles are always a fascinating insight into the writer's thought processes. I often think the last two chapters of each book are a little rushed, one hurtles towards the conclusion. Maybe that is just me.

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