The Spell

Infobox Book |
name = The Spell


image_caption =
author = Alan Hollinghurst
country = Great Britain
language = English
genre = Novel
publisher = Chatto & Windus Ltd
release_date = 1998
media_type =
pages =
isbn = ISBN 978-0670883561

The Spell is a 1998 novel by British author Alan Hollinghurst.

Plot introduction

A civil servant falls for a younger man and thereby discovers Ecstasy. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3758156.stm BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Hollinghurst's rise to Booker glory ] ]

Plot summary

Robin is hitchhiking in the United States. He goes into a gay bar where he meets Sylvan, and calls Janey; she tells him she is pregnant with his baby.Alex visits his ex-boyfriend Justin and the latter new boyfriend Robin's house in the country. Robin's son, Dan, is also there. After a prolepsis to Simon's death, the plot is back to Justin and Robin's; they play games along with Tony, and later go to a posh party at Terry's. Whilst driving Alex to see the local picturesque cliffs, Robin pretends to be having a car accident. Later, Dan and Alex are talking together and walk into Aubrey and Hector. They all go to Dan's, along with Dobbin, and go on to have dinner in a restaurant, followed by a club, where Alex is given his first pill of ecstasy by Dan.

Justin is bored alone in his house. He calls Terry for casual sex. Later, Danny and George are driving to a party - Danny confesses to being bored with Alex. Alex and Hugh talk about Danny's lack of cultural knowledge and Alex's drug addiction. Later, Dan is organising a party and Alex wonders if he didn't perhaps waste his youth by not going to raves. Robin and George pick up their friends at the station. Robin's party looks like a gay club night. Robin meets Gordon, who tells him he needs to marry a woman as that is God's will.

Danny gets a new job as a nocturnal security guard, to Alex's annoyance. He takes cocaine from a man he meets in the toilet, and goes clubbing after his shift. Later he returns home and Alex comes over; he tells him he wants to quit his job. Robin suggests Dan and Alex stay in Robin and Justin's cottage whilst they are separated. There, they make love in Robin and Justin's bed and take to going for walks. Alex explains how Justin's father died when they were away on holiday together, how this was the end of their relationship. Later, they take ecstasy pills.

Robin tells Tony he has had to let parts of his house for financial security. Later, he walks round the house looking back towards the past, and Terry pops in - they make love.

Justin is house-hunting with the aid of an attractive estate agent, Charles. Later in his hotel he has sex with Carlo, an escort. After seeing another house, he goes into a bar in Soho. Eventually he returns home and Robin is there; they play Scrabble together. Danny then goes to Dorset to see his father and his lover. They are hanging by the beach. Later at a party, whilst playing cricket, Danny says he is going to visit his mother in San Diego, to Alex's surprise. He then proceeds to break up with him. A little later, Alex, Nick and Danny are off to visit a castle.

Alex visits Hugh in Sicily. He has rough sex with a stranger, then calls a drug dealer to no avail but walks into Lars, who says he can get him some cocaine. The novel ends on a description of the two men driving by the seashore.

Characters

*Robin Woodfield : An architect in his forties. He enjoys rugby and rowing.
*Justin : Robin's younger lover.
*Danny : Robin's twenty-two-year-old son.
*Alexander Nichols : Justin's ex-boyfriend. He works in the Foreign Office.
*Victor : The person who picks up Robin whilst he is hitchkihing in America.
*Sylvan : A man Robin meets in a bar.
*Janey : A woman Robin has had intercourse with, who is pregnant with his child.
*Simon : A late lover of Robin's.
*Terry Badgett : A friend of Justin's, who gets paid for casual sex.
*Tony Bowerchalke
*Mrs Bunce
*Aubrey : A friend of Dan's.
*Hector : A friend of Dan's.
*Hugh : A friend of Alex's.
*Dobbin : A friend of Dan's.
*George : A friend of Dan's, who takes cocaine.
*Lars : A Norwegian gay man.
*Margery Hall : A friend of Robin's.
*Mike Hall : A friend of Robin's. A retired bursar of a military college.
*Gordon
*Charles : An attractive estate agent.
*Carl : A local Dorset lad.
*Les : A local Dorset lad.
*Heinrich : A gay bartender.
*Adrian Ringrose
*Frederick : Hugh's Nigerian lover.

Allusions to other works

*Other writers and works mentioned are : John Dowland's "Five Knacks for Ladies", Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and "An Assignation - Old Style", Oscar Wilde, William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair", William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, Algernon Charles Swinburne.
*The visual arts mentioned are : Frank Lloyd Wright, Quinlan Terry, Bernard Leach.
*The music mentioned is : Giuseppe Verdi's "La traviata", "Let's Hear It for the Boy", Robert Schumann, George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn, Joe Puma, Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Barbirolli, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Frédéric Chopin, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Doors, the Incredible String Band, The Kinks, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven, Van Morrison, Abba, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Madonna's "Bedtime Story".

Allusions to actual history

*William of Orange is mentioned.

References