Amazon reviews

Like many, and perhaps most, writers I have a problematic relationship with amazon, and especially with amazon reader reviews, in which fans, as many idiots as clever people preserve their considered, or unconsidered, reactions to the books they have just read. I thought I'd take a look at the page for The Line of Beauty.

There are ninety customer reviews listed, with a preponderance very impressed with the novel and with Hollinghurst's style in particular: 'this is the finest prose since Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited". Elegant and evocative English, shimmering phrases' according to Septimus; 'this book is superbly written and impressive' (Phil Shanklin). In fact, many reviewers go over similar ground to the mainstream newspaper reviews (the links to whom are in the main post on the novel): the shallowness of the characters, the effectiveness or otherwise of the satire, the treatment of AIDS.

The negative reviews are in the minority, but are in some ways more interesting. Several toot the 'boredom' horn (Mr Crow: 'it just d-r-a-g-g-e-d along...'; Ventura Angelo: 'Yawn ... absolutely boring'), which is a pretty lazy critical response -- and one banned on this course, incidentally. But some make the point that beautiful writing about (morally) ugly people can be as wearing to read as ugly writing about beautiful people.

'Pen ultmate' gives the book one-star, attacking it in terms that (I'd guess) would actually bring a blush of pleasure of Hollinghurst's brow. This, despite its hostile intention, is actually a pretty good account of the Henry James aesthetic that Line of Beauty follows:

This story reads as if it was written by someone with no personality of their own, just a lot of unexpressed mundane thoughts about the world which he's now using the excuse of a novel to finally dribble out, unfortunately. There are endless descriptions of how a character thinks he might react to something that's just been said, but decides not to, and why he decides not to, and how his non-reaction might affect the speaker differently to how he'd be affected if he had actually said what he nearly said but didn't.

It's exactly James's ability to explore that aspect of human interaction, delicately and subtly but with great penetration, that makes so many people fall in love with him as a novelist. Of course, you need to believe that what people feel but don't or can't say is a major part of human life. Similarly, some of these readers come over as, er, foolish. Here's A Customer's one-star review:

When I read the first page I thought i was reading a typical Jeffrey Archer. i have never been so dissapointed in a book.

On the upside, none of the amazon reviewers appeared phased by the detailed depictions of homosexuality as such, which perhaps suggests that homophobia is less a feature of culture today than it was in the 80s: which would be heartening if true. And some of the reports (check out this, different 'A Customer' for instance) are pretty insightful.