Paul Golding

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Paul Golding lives in London. He made his debut in 2000 with The Abomination, which became an international sensation even before it became available to the public and which was compared to the work of Marcel Proust, Vladimir Nabokov, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, Julian Barnes and Graham Swift.

It is typical that only very limited information about this author is available. At some point a very vague picture of him surfaced, which was taken about twenty years ago. Only one recent picture was released, which shows so clearly a narcissistic, fashionable gay wet dream that no one can really believe that it's a picture of a writer and not some model or porn actor.

His debut novel 'The abomination' caused quite a stir in Great Brittain. Golding describes how his main character James Moore has a homosexual relationship with a teacher at his distinguished catholic boarding school. As it happened the Lancashire police was at that time conduction an investigation into allegations of sexual relations between teacher and students at the exclusive Jesuit boarding school Stonyhurst College. And Paul Golding had been a student at that very college, as were the writers Tolkien and Conan Doyle. Several other past students who read the novel, saw clear similarities with the nameless school and practices, as written down in The Abomination. Of course the police was interested in a talk with the author about the backgrounds of his novel, but in contrast to the prevailing fashion in the UK that dictates confession literature, Golding refused categorically to talk about the possibility of any autobiographical element in his book. He gave both moral and literary-esthetical reasons for this: he wanted to protect his book and he saw no good in having people being send to prison for pedophile acts they committed decades ago. Nevertheless, his silence only enhanced the curiosity of his readers.

Though of course any resemblance between the author and his main character James Moore is purely coincidental, Goldings show of narcissism paints a pretty picture of what the reader of The Abomination can expect, for James Moore, born as Santiago Moore Azmora, is a narcissist as rarely seen. besides this he is cold, aloof and in an indirect way exhibitionistic (another coincidental resemblance with his creator, one is inclined to think).

In his second book 'Senseless' homosexuality and aids play an important role and it is as tantalisingly written as The Abomination.

Source: http://www.scholieren.com/boekverslagen/20542

Quick! Look! It's the elusive author! Paul Golding's strange yet mesmerizing work reads like a roman a clef. The Abomination is a Big Novel, the literary equivalent of James Mitchner's Hotel, or Marilyn French's The Women's Room (which is, actually pretty good, just dated.)There's a quality of guilty pleasure in this sort of subject matter that's "intellectualized" by the heft. As in, "This maybe crap, but it's long, so it's Worthwhile."
The Abomination benefits, too, from a frustratingly elusive author, Paul Golding. Unlike many people - authors, college students - in the twenty-first century who are ubiquitous vis social media posts and photographs, Paul Golding has exactly two pictures of himself. The first is blurred and looks nothing like the second: Golding (or, as some have suggested, a call-boy hired to pose as Golding, or Golding after a really long night and/or dollops of Botox), wide-eyed, wearing a very tight, very white tee-shirt.
I mention the photographs of "Paul Golding" only because they cue so perfectly to The Abomination. One (okay, me) imagines a narrator who's brilliant yet painfully sensitive, sexy and urbane. This picture of "Paul Golding” repeatedly made me turn back and look while reading the book: I wanted to see the adult who wrote so beautifully about the homoerotic charge of an all-boy boarding school, and the institution's insane mix of religion and sex. --Tomas Mournian

Further Readings:

The Abomination by Paul Golding
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Vintage (May 14, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375724397
ISBN-13: 978-0375724398
Amazon: The Abomination
Amazon Kindle: The Abomination

Cruising the seamy underbelly of London’s gay scene, James Moore Zamora is as eager to repel men as he is to seduce them. Handsome, sophisticated, intelligent, and vain, beneath his immaculately maintained exterior lies an elaborate network of deeply embedded scars from a lifetime filled with betrayal and isolation. Born to negligent, self-absorbed parents and raised among upper crust society on a picturesque Spanish island, at nine-years-old James is sent off to an exclusive Catholic boarding school in England. Met with savageness by his peers, and seduced by the twisted affections of his teachers, he soon develops a self-consciousness that passes for self-awareness and a profound cynicism that masks savage anger. Charged with linguistic precision, brutal honesty, and caustic wit, The Abomination is a disturbing yet electrifying account of one man’s tortured coming of age.

More Spotlights at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Lists/Gay Novels

Comments

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Also I found pretty harsh that comment, and since it was not a direct source, I highlighted that it was not from an author source. It would be interested to read the original source to maybe better understand the author's reason. Even if it is a question of privacy, it's always a very important matter. Elisa