Reading The abomination, the 500+ page debut novel of Paul Golding published in 2000, one wonders whether the title reflects on the content of the book, or on the book itself. This huge novel drags the reader into the life story of its main character, the young (James) Santiago Moore Zamora.

The book is divided into four parts, Parts One and Five cover Moore's contemporary life in London, Part Two describes his early youth, Part Three his time at Prep School, and Part Four his time at public school. Part 2 is about double the length of Part 1, and Part 4 is about double the length of Part 3. The middle three parts length is mainly determined by incredibly detailed descriptions.

Part 1 evokes a vivid description of the London gay scene in the 1980s in about fifty pages, which is continued in another fifty odd pages in Part 5. This part of the novel describes the apparently unfulfilled life of James Moore, his inability to build a lasting relationship with a gay partner, and his substitute affection, and love for a rent boy.

Part 2 describes his early youth; this part is quite boring; The slow-paced Part 3 is dominated by the development of a homoerotic relation between James, aged nine, and one of the teachers, Mr Wolfe. This pedophile relation is exposed and means returning trouble to Mr Wolfe, and James as he moves on to public school. The overall impression is that James liked Mr Wolfe's attention and the sexual relationship.

This is in stark contrast with James' experiences at public school, where he is raped and forced into a repeated, involuntary sexual relationship with Dr Fox. James disgust is reflected in the utterly disgusting way the sexual acts are described, from explicit details to Dr Fox' lack of hygiene, and James subsequent gagging. In both Part 3 and 4, James is plagued by fear of discovery, and toward the end of Part 4 he becomes the victim of blackmail.

Part 4 is quite uneventful; the most remarkable seems the fact that James relation with Dr Fox develops from disgust to a kind of Platonic friendship, in which Dr Fox takes James out to fine dining restaurants, showering money. Clearly, out of the demise of the blackmail scam, adolescent James emerges with an air that sex and money are intricately linked, and Dr Fox takes him out to expensive restaurants, see and be seen, although little attention is paid to this aspect.

From references to popular culture and history (e.g. Spain under Franco, or the film Death in Venice), and by deduction, the reader can establish that James was born in the late 1950s, went through school in the 1960s and 1970s, and emerged on the gay scene in London in the early 80s.

It has been suggested, and the structure of the book surely contributes to that, that the novel poses that James' school experiences form the basis and cause for his unfulfilled adult life. However, throughout the novel, apart from the initial violence and smelliness of Dr Fox, James seems to enjoy his school boy experiences. There is never a particular hint that young James either regrets his youth or his adult life, with any serious doubt. On the contrary, the novel seems to suggest that his coming of age, if not typical, is not entirely unexpected either.

The abomination of the title is not felt by James; and in as far as the reader feels abominated, it seems less with the content of the novel, than its form. The novel would be a whole lot more readable, if it had been 200 - 300 pages shorter; the enormously detailed descriptions are numbing; however, the novel is obviously very well-written, and despite the baroque style, the beauty of the language is quite compelling to keep on reading. Some details are absolutely gorgeous, such as James seeing "nest of swollen up, dead house mice" in a pile of tea bags in the headmaster's litter box. ( )

James Moore is first seduced at a 1950s Prep school by a master, Mr Wolfe, at age 9. He enjoys this. From age 13 to 15 he is then abused by his English public school music teacher Dr Fox, but hates it. ( )

I have been reading this book on and off for about two months, usually while travelling on public transport. Not sure if I would really classify the book as safe to be seen reading on public spaces but in this respect I don't really care what people think. What is more, The Abomination has short sections so you weren't usually left in the middle of a long chapter when you reached your destination.

The Abomination moves on several levels, the protagonist's childhood in his mother's Spain (on the islands somewhere, for some reason I never seemed able to work out where, on the Canary Islands or the Balearic Islands), public school education in Catholic schools in his father's native England, his present, involving his encounters with Steve, Big Uncut Man he finds in personal ads clip a one-night stand dropped in his flat.

The most disturbing part is perhaps the part where the prepubescent narrator gets involved with one of his teachers. It is described in detail, as love... but reading it, especially on public transport was an uncomfortable experience.

A well-written book with lots of evocative details. ( )