The Sparsholt Affair Quotes

“Pat was (illicitly, nocturnally) scattered on Eel Brook Common—even if he felt a literal-minded reluctance to walk there in the months that followed, when the frost on the grass or the wind-blown grit on the paths might hold microscopic parts of him. He still wondered, when he saw the damp chevrons of his boot soles on the floor of the porch, if in fact he wasn’t treading Pat back into the house.”
― Alan Hollinghurst, The Sparsholt Affair

“Each person if he was lucky found the place where he could shine, and the person he could shine on. At Cranley Gardens Johnny had been audience, to Evert, to Ivan, to the whole clever, memoir-swapping gang. But with Pat he was a closely attended performer - he was funny, almost articulate, and rich in things worth saying.”
― Alan Hollinghurst, The Sparsholt Affair

“In truth the memoir was a game of postponement – a trick he played on himself almost daily, and fell for every time. There would be a poor and evasive morning, with letters to write as well, and a number of phone calls that had to be made; then lunch, at a place not necessarily close, and several things to do after lunch, with mounting anxiety in the two hours before six o’clock: and then a drink, a glow of resolve and sensible postponement till the following morning, when, too hung-over to do much work before ten, he would seek infuriated refuge, about eleven forty-five, in the trying necessity of going out once more to lunch. Over lunch, at Caspar’s or at the Garrick, he would be asked how work was going, when it could be expected, and the confidence of the questioner severely inhibited his answers – they had a bottle of wine, no more, but still the atmosphere was appreciably softened, his little hints at difficulties were taken as mere modesty – ‘I’m sure it will be marvellous’ – ‘It will take as long as it takes’ – and he left fractionally consoled himself, as if some great humane reprieve were somehow possible, and time (as deadline after deadline loomed and fell away behind) were not an overriding question. In the evenings especially, and towards bedtime, half-drunk, he started seeing connexions, approaches, lovely ideas for the work, and sat suffused with a sense of the masterly thing it was in his power to do the next morning.”
― Alan Hollinghurst, The Sparsholt Affair

“It is hard to do justice to old pleasures that cannot be revived—we seem half to disown our youthful selves, who loved and treasured them.”
― Alan Hollinghurst, The Sparsholt Affair