Alan Hollinghurst’s novel, The Line of Beauty, which is
set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic in Britain. Nick, the hero of the novel, has just had an HIV
test. He knows the result will be positive and he’ll die soon. Hollinghurst tells us:
[Nick] . . . dawdled on rather breathless, seeing visions in the middle of the day. He tried to rationalize
the fear, but its pull was too strong and original. It was inside himself, but the world around him, the
parked cars, the cruising taxi, the church spire among the trees, had also been changed. They had been
revealed . . . The emotion was startling . . . It was a love of the world that was shockingly
unconditional. He stared back at the house, and then turned and drifted on. He looked in bewilderment
at number 24, the final house with its regalia of stucco swags and bows. It wasn’t just this street corner
but the fact of a street corner at all that seemed, in the light of the moment, so beautiful
set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic in Britain. Nick, the hero of the novel, has just had an HIV
test. He knows the result will be positive and he’ll die soon. Hollinghurst tells us:
[Nick] . . . dawdled on rather breathless, seeing visions in the middle of the day. He tried to rationalize
the fear, but its pull was too strong and original. It was inside himself, but the world around him, the
parked cars, the cruising taxi, the church spire among the trees, had also been changed. They had been
revealed . . . The emotion was startling . . . It was a love of the world that was shockingly
unconditional. He stared back at the house, and then turned and drifted on. He looked in bewilderment
at number 24, the final house with its regalia of stucco swags and bows. It wasn’t just this street corner
but the fact of a street corner at all that seemed, in the light of the moment, so beautiful
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