---
product_id: 62244238
title: "The Sparsholt Affair"
brand: "alan hollinghurst"
price: "14.82 OMR"
currency: OMR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 19
category: "Books"
url: https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/62244238-the-sparsholt-affair
store_origin: OM
region: Oman
---

# The Sparsholt Affair

**Brand:** alan hollinghurst
**Price:** 14.82 OMR
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Sparsholt Affair by alan hollinghurst
- **How much does it cost?** 14.82 OMR with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.om](https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/62244238-the-sparsholt-affair)

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- alan hollinghurst enthusiasts

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## Description

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    The "loneliness. . . of difference.'
  

*by F***N on Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2018*

Alan Hollinghurst’s novel THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR covers three generations of fiends who meet at Oxford in 1940. It ends in the present day in a world of i-phones, body tattoos, same-sex marriage, children from sperm donors, etc. parents, etc. These characters go to war, marry, divorce, remarry, have children; and some of them die.At the heart of this long sprawling novel (454 pages) is David Sparsholt, a handsome, athlete,  with whom everyone is taken when he arrives at Oxford in October, 1940. He of course is the Sparsholt in the title of the book. The Sparsholt affair crops up again and again and takes on different meanings throughout the novel. One of the things so fascinating about the book is that for the most part we see David through the eyes of other characters: Freddie Green, Evert Dax, Johnny et al.The book is a mirror of the changing attitudes of the British public toward the LGBT community in the past 75 years. Although we read page after page filled with eroticism, the sex is always subtle.  The entire second section of the novel “The Lookout” is filled with a young man’s longing in beautifully understated language. Some examples from the first two sections:  “There was a careless glimpse of his sex in the open slit of his pyjamas.” Or “he was knee-to-knee with the man he adored.” And “His wet underpants hinted at transparency.” It is refreshing to see that sometimes less is more. (I can name two or three well-respected novelists on this side of the Atlantic who could take a lesson from Mr. Hollinghurst.)The author is a master of giving the reader a complete richly detailed description of someone or something in a sentence or two: One character’s “oiled forelock fell over his left eye in a ragged comma.” And in a restaurant “white napkins stood lop-eared in the wine glasses.” A woman’s face is “more intelligent than beautiful.”One of the qualities of good fiction (for me at least) is the writer’s ability to remind us of things we have thought about but not voiced. Mr. Hollinghurst does this again and again and always beautifully. One character “felt the pang of regret that came before leaving a place he would never see again.” (This is in the context of traveling to a new place.) Then the character is returning to his hometown for the last time: “Johnny strolled on, with an uncanny sense of knowing this town in a thousand details, the past showing through the present, [magnificent] and of being on the brink of saying goodbye to it forever.” And in that same town “here nothing had changed but the seasons.” And one more:  After another character retires, he has “suddenly purposeless days.”THE SPARSHOLT AFFAIR is not for the lazy reader. New characters show up in this dense novel; others disappear. But the novel is most certainly worth sticking with  since Mr. Hollingshurst ultimately brings his narrative to a poignant, compelling conclusion. He adroitly captures the lives of gay men, from the longing of adolescence to the acceptance of old age.

### ⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Long awaited, but...
  

*by D***P on Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2018*

Alan Hollinghurst is one of the best novelists of our age, but this, sadly, is probably one of his weakest works. His almost Jamesian eye and insight is at play here of course and there's many a delicious fine turn of phrase, however his ability to hew characters to their unforgettable essences and make you love them in spite of their flaws is muffled and diffuse in this overly sprawling meander from World War II to the present.Peopled with a huge cast of characters, many having the same name, and with entirely too many ambiguous pronouns in shifting scenery through all the different eras, I found myself getting lost  and then having to back up multiple pages to find out exactly what was being done or said to whom, and where. Don't get me wrong, a visit to Hollinghurst-land is always worth the effort, but that special care one always expects from Hollinghurst, where each character becomes etched in your conciousness to be carried with you always is missing--and I wouldn't have minded another 200 pages or so to get to know all these tantalizing characters a little bit better and more in depth. I feel as though I made a brief visit, and not as though these people had become, as the author can so wonderfully do when he wants to, the friends and family you want to know and love and carry around in your memory forever.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Amazing novel
  

*by B***) on Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2018*

Epic story that basically presents the arc of gay history from the 1940s to 2012.  The delicious core of the book (for me, at least) is the gorgeous and sweeping language that author Hollinghurst brings to both narrative and dialogue.  The storyline is full of tease, suggestion and missing pieces which gives the reader work to do in filling in conclusions for broken off interactions (some sexual and physical) and gaps in time, as characters mature out of the story.The Sparsholt of the title could be David--introduced as an ambiguous sex symbol early on in the book, or his son, Johnny who dominates most of the story's second half and certainly represents totally unambiguous acceptance of his sexuality.  For me there was little doubt that Johnny is the book's true protagonist and represents the product of the arc of progress.Author Hollinghurst is currently enjoying a lot of admiring attention for this novel and for its predecessors.  He truly deserves the spotlight for the body of work that he's produced that marches the beauty of the English language up and down the runway in a way that few others can match."The Sparsholt Affair" is a memorable book and will likely lead new readers to the author's earlier works.

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*Product available on Desertcart Oman*
*Store origin: OM*
*Last updated: 2026-03-01*