the line of beauty

A story of love, class, sex and money, The Line of Beauty crawls deep under the skin of Thatcher's Britain, seen through the eyes and experiences of a young, gay man, from the euphoria of falling in love to the tragedy of AIDS. A young man becomes attached to a family that's not his own, and casts himself into the life of plentiful riches and gay love affairs for which he seems destined. Production details Adapted from Alan Hollinghurst's novel by … Share. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. The final two months of the life of media tycoon Robert Maxwell. Nick discovers by accident that Gerald is having an affair with his assistant, Penny, which disturbs his view of the Feddens. Was this review helpful to you? Line of Beauty (DVD) Adapted by award-winning writer Andrew Davies from Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel, this three-part saga is set during the Thatcherite 1980s. ©2018 Alan Hollinghurst (P)2018 Macmillan Digital Audio. The novel explores the question of whether a gay man can remain apolitical in a homophobic society. Copy link. Over the course of three episodes spanning four years in the mid eighties, we follow Nick's two homosexual love affairs in a time of promiscuity and carelessness, until the A.I.D.S. Banijay Rights Signs First-Look Deal With Producer Ellie Wood (Exclusive). [5], Hollinghurst has received praise for his portrayal of life among the privileged governing classes during the early to middle 1980s. Over the course of three episodes spanning four years in the mid eighties, we follow Nick's two homosexual love affairs in a time of promiscuity and carelessness, until the A.I.D.S. Nick's dance with Margaret Thatcher has overtones of a dance with the devil. [3][4] In 2019, the novel was ranked 38th on The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. English. Use the HTML below. It is a novel that defines a decade, exploring with peerless style a young man's collision with his own desires, and with a world he can never truly belong to. Nick spends election night at home alone with Catherine. This theory originated with William Hogarth (18th-century English painter, satirist, and writer), and is an essential part of Hogarth's theory of aesthetics as described in his 1753 book Analysis of Beauty. In 2006, a three-part television adaptation was broadcast by the BBC and later released on DVD throughout the world. Bloomsbury. It is a novel that defines a decade, exploring with peerless style a young man's collision with his own desires, and with a world he can never truly belong to. The Line of Beauty is divided into three parts that take place over the course of three years in the life of Nick Guest, a gay college student living through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Screenwriter Andrew Davies made his name with the contemporary series 'A Very Peculiar Practice', but these days seems to concentrate largely on period drama. AS a novelist, Alan Hollinghurst has set himself an intimidating standard. A short stay becomes permanent, and Nick positions himself in the family's plentiful lives of parties and politics during the Thatcher years. The AIDS crisis comes close for Nick, and a public scandal casts his life with the Feddens in a different light. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? The novel is set in Britain in three parts, taking place in 1983, 1986 and 1987. Nick enjoys life with the Feddens, has an affair with his pretty-boy business partner, and dances with the prime minister. Having never moved out Nick is now a permanent member of the Fedden household. He later has a working lunch with two possible gay film investors. (2006– ). The book refers frequently to the life and works of Henry James. The book also considers heterosexual hypocrisy regarding homosexual promiscuity. A woman on the brink of a marriage proposal is told by a friend that she should date other men before spending the rest of her life with her boyfriend. Dan Stevens plays Nick Guest with Oliver Coleman in the role of Toby Fedden. Add the first question. [6] The novel has been compared to Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time,[7] with special regard to Powell's character Nicholas Jenkins. The Line of Beauty is Alan Hollinghurst's Man Booker Prize-winning masterpiece. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Line of Beauty was not on the reading lists for my English Literature courses at university, in spite of the fact that it has been hailed by critics as a masterpiece and a classic (Adams, 2004). Hero Banner. A true tale of love, liberty and scandal amongst the Edwardian artists' colony in Cornwall. 59min. The Line of Beauty is told in the third person, but everything is filtered through a single consciousness, Nick’s: we see things as he sees them, so there is no logistical reason for the novel not to have been in the first person. The Line of Beauty is a 2004 Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst. $24.95. A short stay becomes permanent, and Nick positions himself in the family's plentiful lives of parties and politics during the Thatcher years. He spends most of his time with Wani Ouradi, one of his Oxford contemporaries, the son of a rich Lebanese businessman. "It is the summer of 1983, and young Nick Guest has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious new Tory MP, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their children Toby and Catherine. Pretty people still get the best deals in the market, from labour to love. According to this theory, S-shaped curved lines signify liveliness an… In order to obtain research funds for her studies, a scientist accepts an offer to participate in an extraordinary experiment: for three weeks, she is to live with a humanoid robot, created to make her happy. Wani arrives late. The book touches upon the emergence of HIV/AIDS, as well as the relationship between politics and homosexuality, and its ambivalent acceptance within the 1980s Conservative Party and mainstream society. A young man becomes attached to a family that's not his own, and casts himself into the life of plentiful riches and gay love affairs for which he seems destined. The book explores the tension between Nick's intimate relationship with the Fedden family, in whose parties and holidays he participates, and the realities of his sexuality and gay life, which the Feddens accept only to the extent of never mentioning it. Nick Guest comes to London to stay with the Feddens, devours their rich lifestyle, and falls in love. Four young men make a risky investment together that puts them in trouble with the mob. It explores themes of hypocrisy, homosexuality, madness and privilege, with the emerging AIDS crisis forming a backdrop to the book's conclusion. From Alan Hollinghurst, the acclaimed author of The Sparsholt Affair, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money during four extraordinary years of change and tragedy. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. About The Line of Beauty. Line of beauty is a term and a theory in art or aesthetics used to describe an S-shaped curved line (a serpentine line) appearing within an object, as the boundary line of an object, or as a virtual boundary line formed by the composition of several objects. Catherine has now been diagnosed as being bipolar and is on lithium, which helps to control her mood swings. A boisterous Cat, now overly energetic thanks to her medication, has Nick drive her to a location where they find Penny and Gerald together. The novel also deals with the "coming out" experience of Nick and of gay men in general. Despite the fact that Nick is openly gay, Wani seemingly appears to have a female fiancée and remains closeted, so their relationship is a closely kept secret. A biography of Hildegard Knef, one of Germany's biggest post-war stars. Hollinghurst wrote part of the novel at the Yaddo colony. Tap to unmute. William Hogarth, in his 1753 book The Analysis of Beauty, describes how beauty itself is embodied in the shape,[1] which protagonist Nick Guest uses to describe Wani's body. Andrew Davies' adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize winning tale of a young gay man’s experiences of social change, hedonism and hypocrisy in 1980s Britain. He has AIDS and is wasting away. The Line of Beauty is Alan Hollinghurst's Man Booker Prize-winning masterpiece. It is a novel that defines a decade, exploring with peerless style a young man's collision with his own desires and with a world he can never truly belong to. There are many models of beauty and as old saying goes beauty is in the eye of the beholder. He goes back to the Feddens' house, knowing that they are absent for a wedding and runs into Penny who reveals that she is going to continue her affair with Gerald. As Leo lives with his religious mother and Nick feels restricted in the Fedden household the two conduct their sexual affair almost entirely outside in public parks and side streets. Audio Languages. The son of the house, Toby, is his Oxford University classmate on whom he has a secret crush. The Line of Beauty. Nick moves into the luxurious Notting Hill home of the Sloane Ranger Fedden family. The story lacks the utter poignancy of Fitzgerald's book because the hero (who, co-incidentally or not, shares the name of Nick with the other novel's protagonist) only rejects his adopted world when it rejects him; But the screenplay, cinematography, and performances are all first rate, especially that of Tim McInerny, playing a MP whose ultimate ruthlessness, self-righteousness, and rottenness, is hidden beneath a layer of almost genuine charm and kindness. This could be because the novel is contemporary, and courses tend to focus on historical canonical works. Get a sneak peek of the new version of this page. Nick is attracted to physical beauty in art and in men. Nick meets Margaret Thatcher for the first time and, high on coke, asks her to dance, which she accepts. The Line of Beauty is a 2004 Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst. Nick goes to live with Wani and views the first and final issue of Ogee. Check out our editors' picks for the movies and shows we're excited about this month, like Mortal Kombat, "Them," and Stowaway. crisis, and a bout of scandal, threaten life as he has come to know it. Set in the London underground gay scene of the early 1980s, an era that was known for its vibrant urban club culture, gay civil rights protests, and the simultaneous panic about the AIDS crisis. She realizes that Nick is having an affair with Wani when the two of them spend time at the Feddens French country home and urges him to be careful after her godfather dies of AIDS. [8] The protagonist has also been likened to Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Info. Three out of Hollinghurst’s four novels end with fairly horrible comeuppances for their protagonists, worse than they deserve, the reader tends to feel, but also somehow grimly condign.The Line of Beauty (2004) resembles The Swimming-Pool Library (1988) in A poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in England prior to World War II. Leo also introduces Nick to Pete, his middle-aged former lover who runs an antiques shop, like Nick's father, and who is sickly. 438 pp. As a result Nick moves out after Gerald accuses him of attaching himself to the family and then wrecking them because of his homosexuality. Alan Hollinghurst’s historical fiction The Line of Beauty (2004) was the first work classified in the genre of gay literature to receive the U.K.’s Booker Prize. It’s a place where the number one (and only rule) is to make sure you leave us with an amazing feeling of well being, a spring in your step and a new found joy for your skincare routine at home. The story surrounds the young gay protagonist, Nick Guest. He is visited by Leo's sister at the Ogee office where he learns that Leo died a few weeks before of AIDS and his sister is trying to warn all his former lovers. In 1987 on election day Nick goes to vote and does not vote for the Conservative candidate but a member of the Green party. The title of the book refers to the Line of Beauty — the double "S" of the ogee shape, a shape which "swings both ways". But when he returns to his ... See full summary ». The story of their affair forces Gerald to resign as an MP and causes resentment between Rachel and Nick, where Rachel blames Nick for her own lack of responsibility regarding Cat, and further contends Nick never truly understood that his role was to take care of Catherine, not indulge her. crisis, and a bout of scandal, threaten life as he has come to know it. The Line of Beauty - Episode 3. Nick watches as his former gay university friend Polly is elected an MP at 28 and Gerald barely scrapes back in his seat. Nick leaves the Feddens' house for a final time and muses on the HIV test he is having done the next day and imagines that the results will be positive. (1986), Bloomsbury Publishing, paperback edition, 176, "Alan Hollinghurst wins prestigious Booker Prize", BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Hollinghurst takes Booker Prize, Alfred Hickling, 'Between the lines', The Guardian, 10 April 2004, Anthony Quinn, 'The Last Good Summer', New York Times, 31 October 2004, 'The last summer', The Telegraph, 28 March 2004, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Line_of_Beauty&oldid=1005240963, British novels adapted into television shows, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 6 February 2021, at 18:11. 38 Dock Street, Downtown Dundee, DD1 3DR. Shortly after, the press (who have been camped outside the Feddens' home), publish a story on Wani and Nick, causing greater scandal. The Line of Beauty The Line of Beauty (TV Mini-Series 2006– ) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Finally, an underlying theme is the nature of beauty. However, he pays a price for his choices: his beautiful lover Wani is a self-hating homosexual, and the Feddens' home (in which Nick Guest remains a guest) is filled with both exquisite art and vile hypocrisy. "[10], Margaret Thatcher's appearance has been compared to that of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness;[8] Sir Maurice Tipper and his wife have been compared to Evelyn Waugh characters.[8]. BBC 2 The line of beauty trailer May 2006. A party is thrown for Rachel and Gerald's 25th wedding anniversary. Alan Hollinghurst's 'The Line of Beauty' is, at least in this adaptation, a version of 'The Great Gatsby' fitted to 1980s Britain, the story of a young man from an ordinary background who mistakenly harbours too many illusions about the beautiful people of the smart set. Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the NBCC award. Watch later. 3 episodes. Check out our gallery of the 2021 Oscar nominees in the leading and supporting acting categories, as the characters they so brilliantly played and in real life. 23 September 2017 It is the summer of 1983, and young Nick Guest, an innocent in the matters of politics and money, has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious new Tory MP, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their children Toby and Catherine. Nick Guest (Dan Stevens) comes to London to live with his college friend's family, the Feddens. Nick Guest (Dan Stevens) comes to London to live with his college friend's family, the Feddens. Nick's stay is meant to last for a short time while Toby and his parents—Rachel, the daughter of an extremely wealthy Rothschild-like Jewish family, and Gerald, a successful businessman and just-elected Conservative MP for Barwick—are at their holiday home in France. Left at home with Nick is the Feddens' daughter Catherine whom the Feddens are reluctant to leave on her own because of her history of self-harming. THE LINE OF BEAUTY By Alan Hollinghurst. The novel begins in the summer of 1983, shortly after Margaret Thatcher's second victory in the general election. The bizarre tale of Fanny Cradock, Britain's famous and maligned TV chef from 50s to the 70s. Framed by the two general elections that returned Margaret Thatcher to power, … Story of forbidden love and the NBCC Award tale of love, liberty and scandal the. 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