MixedThe Boston GlobeThe Line of Beauty is a sumptuous, if prolix, portrait of dissolute 1980s London, when greed and power bespoke glamour and privilege … Some of the passages, particularly when characters launch into discourses on culture, seem interminable. The descriptions are always lush, the repartee is always droll (very British), but they can be soporific … The Line of Beauty is carried throughout by Hollinghurst's exquisite prose and authorial restraint. He withholds moral judgment, not letting his narrative stoop to invective or mere satire.