Not quite sure why I bought this, although it did win the Booker prize and is good, if a little ponderous for me.
I found it difficult to work out Nick, the central figure; he is intelligent and his perception of events and other characters is always interesting and perceptive, but he is also astonishingly naïve and quite self obsessed; is he being parodied in this respect?
The book ends up as quite a big sweep around the Thatcher years as seen by a vicariously over-privileged onlooker (Nick). Although one has little sympathy with Gerald Fedden, the rising but doomed Tory cabinet minister, it is difficult not to feel some at the end, as part of his disgrace has been brought about by Nick, in love with his son, living rent free in his Kensington mansion.
As Nick’s friends, and possibly he himself (it is left open) succumb to AIDS, he continues to swan along in this self obsessed manner. But it is a better book than these rather caustic remarks suggest.
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