"The Stranger's Child" by Alan Hollnghurst

Another book recommended (in fact, given to me as a gift by dear friend) was Alan Hollinghurst's " The Stranger's Child". 

I was vaguely aware of author's name, probably saw it somewhere in bookshops - I am sure nobody had ever mentioned him to me since 99% of my working colleagues are not reading anything. So I approached "The Stranger's Child" with curiosity, not knowing anything about it except that its recommended.

Nice surprise. 

It turns out Hollinghurst is one of those rare writers more about the style than the story itself - like Umberto Eco whom I reading because of the wonderful style but hardly follow what's going on, Hollinghurst has a particular, very original approach to his characters more like a movie camera that circles around than usual straight line used by so many writers who don't understand there are many different ways to tell the story. For example, at the very beginning of a chapter Hollinghurst dives immediately into a sentence "She'd been lying in a Hammock reading a poetry over an hour" without any explanation who is "she" and than proceeds from there on. Its up to a reader to follow chapter to chapter as the story circles in a smoke clouds trough several decades. It is a british relative to "Rashomon" with the same story told from different points of view, except that here Hollinghurst mixes in another addition, a very relative issue of time and what it does to our memories - at the very beginning we got a hint about secret relationship and than later trough subsequent chapters (each set in different decades) survivors try to remember (or to hide) what they exactly knew about it. There are so many interesting questions posed here - never mind the story itself - for example how much can we rely on our memories as they are mostly impressions, besides several people might have completely different memories about the same subject. Secrecy of relationships and curiosity of others about it. Loves lived and imagined. Lives lived in loneliness. Old age and bitterness. Family and its chains. Even though occasionally I got a little bit lost with ever-changing decades and characters new & old, I enjoyed the book very much and in fact I believe this is kind of the novel that deserves repeated reading in order to enjoy it more. Highly recommended.