The Spell by Alan Hollinghurst (1998) – Review

Alan Hollinghurst’s short 1998 “comedy of sexual manners” is not as magical as one might have hoped. Whilst witty in parts, its disjointedness and total lack of characters to care about leaves it feeling flawed and notably more frivolous than the author’s other more impressive works.

When Alan Hollinghurst won the Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty in 2004, the eternally subtle Daily Express announced the news with the headline “Booker Won By Gay Sex.” This cringe-inducing dismissiveness aside, Hollinghurst, like it or not, has established himself over the last thirty years or so as one of Britain’s leading gay writers. For his part, the author told the Guardian in 2011 that he “spent 20 years politely answering the question, ‘How do you feel when people categorise you as a gay writer?’ and I’m not going to do it this time round. It’s no longer relevant,” though he admits that he is “not sure my heart would be completely in” writing a novel with no gay characters or gay themes.

The Spell includes very few non-gay characters. Indeed, one of its four protagonists, Danny, realises in Dorset that he is “so conditioned to a world in which everyone was gay that he found it hard to bear in mind, down here, a hundred miles from London, that almost everyone wasn’t.” Where other Hollinghurst novels often concede a heterosexual intrusion into the homosexual world depicted – the gay-bashing scene in the otherwise unrelentingly gay The Swimming-Pool Library (1988), The Line of Beauty’s constant tightrope walk between the ‘proper’ and the decidedly improper – The Spell is a markedly lower-key affair.

Almost all of the issues encountered by the four gay men The Spell concerns – Alex, Justin (Alex’s ex), Justin’s new boyfriend Robin, and Robin’s son Danny (with whom Alex proceeds to fall in love) – are caused by one or more of the other three. The problem is, with all four either slightly pathetic or simply quite nasty, and each monumentally more shallow than they profess to be, one finds it hard to care much for any of them. Themes like revenge and betrayal are here so ubiquitous that the reader becomes numb to them, and the novel thus slips into dangerous territory: ‘show, don’t tell’ is one thing, but when the reader would rather you actually do neither you’re in trouble.

Of course, this style – showcasing characters of little redeemability – has worked many times before, either with anti-heroes or with farce (Hollinghurst is clearly going for the latter here), but it is difficult to tell in this novel whether the narrative is quite as dismissive of the characters as one feels it ought to be. Sometimes, it feels instead as though the novel is pleading with its reader to remain engaged with the tribulations of its four protagonists as it rushes between perspectives: bored of this character? Okay, what about this one, then?

Alex, for example, swallows one pill of MDMA (to which he is introduced, middle-aged, by the youthful Danny)  and almost immediately recants his love of Shostakovich and purchases a CD named “Monster House Party Five”. This is surely just a little lazy, but the novel doesn’t have time to show subtle changes in character, and therefore hurries things along as though that is simply how they would happen, rather than, as Hollinghurst does so wonderfully in The Line of Beauty, allowing the dust to settle and carefully observing it as it does so.

It is hard not to wonder, with this novel about half the length of Hollinghurst’s others, whether it could not have worked better by focusing on only one of its four protagonists, and indeed why it is shorter in length than his earlier and later novels. The answer, possibly, is that the characters just aren’t quite interesting enough. Their relationship – beautiful boy sleeping with dad’s ex, everyone basically fine with it, ‘family’ gatherings a-plenty – is so bizarre that it verges on silly, making otherwise sincere moments feel the opposite. It really is the case that the least interesting thing about almost every scene tends, unfortunately, to be the protagonist to whom the scene is ‘happening’.

Hollinghurst is, though, as Dwight Garner puts it in a New York Times review of The Sparsholt Affair (2017), “one of the great noticers.” His ability to describe things otherwise unacknowledged is wonderful: a place of significance to a previous relationship is “left,” by Alex, when passed with his new boyfriend, “like any of those unspoken sadnesses or unguessed embarrassments that one partner keeps from the other for ever.” Equally, the inconsequential is made, in a sentence, to seem vast: Robin thinks “of that other day, at the far end of summer, when a little shift occurred in the weather, that might have been nothing, a morning’s chill after weeks of glittering heat, but was in fact the airy chink through which the autumn came pouring, with its vivid forgotten lights and ache of inexact memory and surprising sense of relief.” This is poetry.

It is in scenes with large groups of people that Hollinghurst really excels, though, and in one of the novel’s primary events – a birthday party held for Danny – he portrays excruciatingly an interminable conversation Robin falls victim to with one of his son’s friends, a spiritualist who believes he has – via a medium – spoken directly to Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle, he explains, “has a very fine voice,” and has informed him helpfully that he is “not really gay. I just happen to be attracted to certain men,” as well as that he “had been a sixteen-year-old fish-seller in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus Christ.” “You’d never suspected?” Robin quips.

Such scenes are characteristically funny, but as a satire, the novel is just not quite comical enough. Every sentence in The Line of Beauty reads as though written with a bemused raised eyebrow, and it works perfectly. Here, the reader is never quite sure whether they are in on the joke or if, indeed, there is a joke to be found at all. The character of Danny – youthful, attention-seeking, partying, part-time drug addict – is a caricature, fine, but Alex – heartbroken, snobbish, sensible, malleable – is ridiculous in a completely different way. Are we seriously to believe the two would ever really fall in love? And if so, surely we are expected to feel sorry for Alex (the novel’s most sympathetic character) when it all goes wrong? Only, his sheepishness is so frustrating, and the inevitable so… inevitable, that this simply doesn’t happen.

The Spell fails as a successful satire because it is frequently unclear exactly what it is supposed to be satirising. Late on, the novel tells us Danny “wanted to touch [Alex] consolingly, but also to push him off the fence.” This is how one feels, often enough, reading the book itself. Reluctant to take a stance, it finds itself lurching into tedium: it stares at the reader, but neither winks nor smiles. In drama this is fine. In satire, it is fatal.

Perhaps the novel is most disappointing because, with knowledge of the work that follows and precedes it, it feels like a missed opportunity. “A tightly-wrapped Hollinghurst novel, under 300 pages, depicting ‘romance and drugs, country living and rough trade’? Great!” But if anything, it makes a reader even more appreciative of the sprawling splendour of works like The Line of Beauty and The Swimming-Pool Library.

This short book is a misstep and, whilst occasionally typical (read: delightful) in style, it should not be considered a primer for the author’s other works. That being said, this is the author’s third novel, and we are now awaiting his seventh. Since 1988, it has become clear that he is not just one of Britain’s great gay writers, but quite simply one of Britain’s great writers. That it is the lively, and frequently unabashedly bizarre gay world on which he casts his witty but delicate eye is, surely, a bonus.

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (1997) – Review

If Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy must be ensnared by the label ‘young adult fiction’, that most patronising and – let’s be honest – childish of terms, its sheer majesty and ambition surely sets it apart from its peers.

The Subtle Knife is the second in Pullman’s award-winning trilogy, following Northern Lights (1995) and preceding The Amber Spyglass (2000). The novel again features Lyra Belacqua (now Lyra Silvertongue), heroine of Northern Lights and from a universe “like ours, but different in many ways”, but also introduces Will Parry, a twelve year old boy from – it transpires – “our universe”, as well as a number of their associates and enemies: angels, witches and “soul-eating Spectres” all feature here.

As in Northern Lights, the novel quickly introduces a quest – in this case it is the acquisition of the mysterious knife, though a reunion with Will’s father becomes equally vital – and in another similarity, the object’s larger significance is markedly unclear to the protagonists.

This structure is, though, by no means a rehashing of the previous tale. Certainly, readers might be concerned by the lack of Lyra in the novel’s opening pages, having last witnessed her in the magnificently grandiose final sentence of Northern Lights: “So Lyra and her dæmon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked towards the sun, and walked into the sky.” Instead, Pullman places us in media res, as Will, on the run having killed an intruder, tearfully leaves his mother (suffering from some form of dementia) in the care of his piano teacher, and promptly finds a useful hiding place from the authorities in another world. But this world is far from safe. And it is where he meets Lyra.

The initial suspicion of one another, and the inevitable companionship between the two children, does not thin their respective stories. Will’s character, whilst notably different from Lyra, is just immensely likeable, and one is never therefore left wishing the plot would return solely to the original protagonist. Lyra, for her part, quickly discovers the danger of selfishness, and becomes doggedly devoted to helping others (particularly Will), even as it becomes increasingly perspicuous to all around her that it is her – of course it is her! – and her actions on which the future of His Dark Materials’ multiple universes rely.

Indeed, various chapters are dedicated entirely to side-characters from the first book: both the witch Serafina Pekkala and aeronaut Lee Scoresby have substantial plotlines. Whilst Northern Lights was far from an exposition-filled scene-setter, it is plain to the reader that in its sequel the stakes are even higher; the level of threat has noticeably increased.

The magnitude of the world[s] that Pullman creates here, the scale on which he is working, means deaths (the rate of which sees a brutal increase within this narrative) are felt not just as independent events, but as critical parts of a greater whole. Key characters die on behalf of others, whilst those being protected are not even aware battles are taking place. But no death is ever trivial, nor a cheap shock. The world of His Dark Materials is utterly assured. One hesitates, as the narrative begins to venture towards its own questions regarding “The Authority”, to liken Pullman to a watchmaker, but the intricacy and, well, subtlety, with which he assembles The Subtle Knife, as with Northern Lights, make for thrilling reading, and are an admirable accomplishment indeed.

Phoebe Bridgers: Punisher (2020) – Album Review

It is significant that Punisher, Phoebe Bridgers’ Grammy-nominated follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut Stranger in the Alps, opens with a brief instrumental track. Entitled ‘DVD Menu’, the swaying violin and tentative, muffled piano act as a buffer between whatever you were doing previously and the next thirty-nine minutes. The track is a gentle appeal to the listener’s attention: it is the lights going down in the auditorium; the exhalation of breath which accompanies pressing “play”.

Rather than demanding appreciation by immediately half-deafening its listener, Punisher instead offers the deliciously mellow and twisted ‘Garden Song’, the album’s lead single and lyrical opener. This track encapsulates both Bridgers’ own persona and the album itself. It takes a bold artist to open an album alluding to murder (“Someday I’m gonna live in your house up on the hill / And when your skinhead neighbour goes missing / I’ll plant a garden in the yard”) but this line and the breathy, detached way in which it is sung reveal a complexity which undermines any categorisation of Bridgers’ work as mere “sad girl music” (as numerous Spotify playlists suggest).

Bridgers thrives on her assumed frailty. She sings assertively a line as uncomfortably blunt as “we hate Tears in Heaven / But it’s sad that his baby died” in ‘Moon Song’, a gently building track evocative of a tidal flow, whilst in ‘Garden Song’ she deadpans the acerbic “The doctor put her hands over my liver / She told me my resentment’s getting smaller.” This album is assured, but it is equally happy to allow itself a self-deprecating smile at the sheer gloom of its lyrics.

Indeed, much of the album is written with the wit of a lyricist who knows that the real world is seldom as romantic as other artists would have you believe. Punisher is an album permeated by mature pragmatism, but this does not jeopardise its imagery. In ‘Chinese Satellite’, Bridgers, troubled, takes “a tour out to see the stars” – so far so clichéd – except there aren’t any, so she has to make do with wishing “hard on a Chinese satellite.”

The title track, one of the album’s slowest, imagines a doomed meeting with her idol, Elliott Smith, in which she becomes a “punisher” – a superfan who doesn’t know when to stop talking – and heralds him as surely sweeter to his fans than she, now with punishers of her own, could ever be. Bridgers’ punishers instead have to make do with the unconvincing reassurance that she’s “not angry, that’s just my face.”

This juxtaposition of the alarmingly sincere and the surely more humorous is equally evident in ‘ICU’. Here, Bridgers is at her most darkly revealing: “I get this feeling whenever I feel good it will be the last time.” Yet the song’s second verse declares to her ex (long-time bandmember Marshall Vore) that “I hate your mom / I hate it when she opens her mouth.” The jarring pettiness of this line almost makes it impossible to take at face-value, but this time the fervour with which Bridgers rushes the words and the musical crescendo (Vore’s drums, notably) fantastically mirror the exact blood rush that would lead to such an utterance in heated argument. Nothing in Punisher is dark purely for the sake of morbidity; nothing is funny purely for the sake of levity.

Where Stranger in the Alps had the ferocious ‘Motion Sickness’, Punisher offers two obvious outliers to the less sprightly album tracks. It isn’t unfair to suggest Bridgers’ songs prioritise lyricism, but when the music does come to the forefront, in ‘Kyoto’ and ‘I Know The End’, its impact is all the greater. ‘Kyoto’ incorporates a catchy horn section whilst still maintaining a chorus that starts “I’m gonna kill you / If you don’t beat me to it.” ‘I Know The End’, meanwhile, is something else entirely. Flooded with apocalyptic imagery, from the “tornado” to the billboard declaring “The End Is Near”, the song is the apotheosis of both of Bridgers’ albums, beginning almost a cappella, but culminating in a cathartic crescendo. The track is a veritable outpouring of emotion, and its effect is a sense not only of closure, but of cleansing too. As album-closers go, this is immensely powerful.

With Punisher, Bridgers has established herself as a musical force to be reckoned with, and her development shows no signs of slowing down. Albums with Conor Oberst and friends Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker have separated her two solo albums, but Punisher is by far her most profound and accomplished work thus far. In a world in which emotion so often seems a binary choice between happy and sad, an album which eloquently explores the latter, whilst taking care neither to glamourise it nor to renounce happiness entirely, is a worthy and potent pursuit.

It’s a Sin (2021) – Review

Russell T Davies’ new Channel 4 drama It’s a Sin is a deeply powerful portrayal of the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s which shines a timely light onto an epoch of fear, shame, and tragedy. Even at its bleakest moments, however, it maintains an uplifting sense of comradeship, of community, and, fundamentally, of love.

It is often claimed that Russell T Davies is an expert at lulling viewers into a false sense of security before suddenly and unexpectedly inserting gut-wrenching events into his dramas. This is only partly true. Davies’ real genius is his ability to make such incidents – a drug overdose in Queer as Folk, a murder in Cucumber – seem spontaneous, when really they have been slowly and unavoidably bubbled towards for the series or episode’s duration.

Where It’s a Sin differs from this formula is in its deliberately unsubtle inevitability. Whilst the five-part series’ opening episode necessarily takes time to introduce the viewer to its five protagonists – Jill, Roscoe, Ash, Colin, and Ritchie – the latter two of whom have just moved to London, and all of whom soon decide to live together, by its end there has already been (at least) one death. More impactful than the death itself, though, is the knowledge that it will not – cannot – be the last.

Davies has written historical drama before, most recently the excellent A Very English Scandal, which depicted the leadup to and fallout from the Thorpe Affair, but the levity of that series – the real Norman Scott complained that it was “far too light” – is mostly absent here. It’s a Sin absolutely has funny moments, it wouldn’t be a Davies show if it didn’t, but they are punctuated always with a sense of dread, a cruel result of the benefit of hindsight.

In episode two, Ritchie (played by Olly Alexander in a performance which reaches new depth with each episode) complains that AIDS is “a racket … a pack of lies.” The scene is a classic Davies monologue, and typically brazen – “they say it’s spread by poppers … they say it’s in the spunk” – but any smirk at this naïve flippancy is naturally hollow: as AIDS becomes ever more prominent, and ever more personal to the characters, the joyous self-discovery of gay youth escaping home fast becomes fear, the carefree flat-parties become funerals, and laughter increasingly becomes tears.

The series begins in 1981 and concludes in 1991, a scope which for a lesser writer could result in a loss of closeness to characters, with so much to fit into five episodes. Not so here. Each episode is both magnificently sharp and progressively more brutal. In later episodes, whilst the importance of love and solidarity are emphasised, so too is the misery of love’s absence. After an uncensored eulogy of the early eighties, of the freedom felt before horror usurped it, Ritchie asks his mother (Keeley Hawes, expertly playing one of the series’ most complex characters) whether she understands. “No,” she replies briskly. And how could she? It’s a Sin successfully shows the two worlds that so many queer youngsters live in: the provincial closeted family life contrasted with the exhilarating liberty discovered in leaving home. As the subject of AIDS becomes unavoidable, however, the two worlds find themselves painfully colliding.

Davies’ emphasis on pleasure is vital to this story. Whilst much other media depicting the HIV/AIDS epidemic focuses (unsurprisingly) both on pain and righteous anger, It’s a Sin succeeds in unashamedly showing these directly alongside the sometimes reckless thrill of gay 80s London life. It is – to use an adjective that Davies inadvertently sparked a(nother) nationwide debate around – an authentic portrayal. This is unsurprising given many of the characters are based either on people Davies knew personally, or true stories his friend Jill – herself depicted wonderfully by Lydia West – told him.

On the topic of casting: Neil Patrick Harris’ slightly questionable ‘British’ accent aside, Davies’ original argument before the infernal, interminable ‘culture war’ removed all nuance – that is, that just because he has chosen to cast queer actors as queer characters in his own show, does not mean all other media must, or indeed will, follow suit – is strengthened dramatically by just how well this cast works together. They are utterly believable, both as best friends and as individuals, and it is hard to believe that the chemistry and safety they have described feeling on set did not have a positive effect on screen. The supporting cast, meanwhile, particularly Keeley Hawes, who in one breath-taking tracking shot seems to go through about seven different emotions whilst hardly saying a word, are equally strong.

One thing Davies has been criticised occasionally for in the past is the tendency of some of his characters to somewhat implausibly speechify. Whilst the odd flawlessly delivered monologue does appear here, there is also a clever acknowledgement that not every gay man living through the AIDS epidemic was Larry Kramer. Ritchie is happy to admit that he voted Conservative and supports Margaret Thatcher’s Section 28, and Ash, having repeated a lengthy speech he has supposedly given on his first day working as a teacher about the total absence of homosexuality in school literature – and therefore the ridiculousness of the apparent need to censor it – admits that in truth he had merely informed his superior that there were “a couple of Mary Renaults.” Clearly this incident is comedic, but it also smartly acknowledges the unextraordinary experience of some gay men of the period: not personally changing the world, but merely trying to get on with their lives.

Davies’ approach to the era is a clever one. It’s a Sin is neither a documentary nor a docu-drama and thus humorous if unlikely events are permissible. But this unconstrained freedom allows his drama to represent, in the five fictional protagonists, so many more real figures – many of whom Davies knew personally – whose stories might otherwise be considered too mundane, too typical, for a television drama. Davies, then, has created a work of powerful and captivating drama which asks its viewers to think of those people who aren’t so often remembered. Those twenty-year-olds whose deaths, as he writes in the Guardian, were such a source of shame to their families that their real cause is denied to this day. Whose funerals took place at night, just in case anybody saw. It is to them that he dedicates this drama; to his own friends and to others who may have been his friends had they survived that brutal decade.

Davies admits that he has been unable, until now, to write unflinchingly about AIDS and marvels at the idea that HIV “might come and go within my lifetime.” At the series’ conclusion he returns to Shakespeare. The extract recited, taken from Viola’s Twelfth Night soliloquy, does not include its final line: “O time! Thou must untangle this, not I; / It is too hard a knot for me to untie!” Nor should it. With It’s a Sin, Davies has done precisely what he feared he might never be able to. He has looked back at the past and refused to blink. Authenticity. Boldness. Compassion. This is television at its best.