The novel The Line of Beauty has two central preoccupations. One is describing the mood and attitudes of the Thatcherite 1980s, partly through the character of Gerald Fedden, a Thatcher-worshipping Conservative Member of Parliament. But the other is describing Nick's personal development (or, more accurately, devolution).

Once he is involved with Wani, he becomes increasingly hedonistic and rampant, taking cocaine and cruising constantly. This led Edwina Currie (a novelist and former Conservative MP) to say that if the book had not been written by an openly gay man, it would have been described by critics as stereotypical and homophobic.

What makes it hard to sympathize with Nick in the novel, however, is not just his actions, but a fundamental coldness in his personality. Although he is very impressed by the beautiful surfaces of things, he never seems genuinely to love anybody, including either of his boyfriends. At one point he mentions a character in a Henry James novel, The Spoils of Poynton, who “loves things more than people”. This seems a rather accurate description of Nick himself.

In the television adaptation, however, the character of Nick has been considerably softened. His relationships with both Leo and Wani are genuinely loving. With Leo, he is experiencing the joys of his first relationship (indeed, he is devastated when Leo leaves him without properly explaining why). With Wani, he shows a responsible, caring side that also comes out in his friendship with Catherine Fedden.

While some critics saw the Nick of the book as a morally empty opportunist, some viewers have responded to the Nick of the adaptation as if he is the only virtuous character surrounded by a sea of bigots and hypocrites.

Whatever your opinion of Nick, there is much to be got out of this adaptation. The first half, though enjoyable to watch, may occasionally seem self-indulgent in its emphasis on high society and slightly stuffy parties. But the last episode in particular is powerful, as the gradual setting-up of characters and situations pays off.

The fortunes of all the characters are beginning to slide. AIDS is having a devastating effect on those around Nick. The Feddens are in trouble as Gerald is implicated first in a financial scandal, and then in an adulterous one. Finally, Nick begins to realize that the glamorous world he has inhabited for the last four years may be neither as desirable, nor as welcoming of him as he had thought.

Alan Hollinghurst has said that “The [Henry] Jamesian scenario of the outsider drawn into a glamorous world which slowly reveals its imperfections was consciously in my mind.” Among those imperfections, as Nick discovers, are the attitudes of a decade where even adulterous straight men consider themselves automatically superior to gay men.

The Line of Beauty is that still relatively rare thing: a well-acted and emotionally powerful drama with a gay character and a gay consciousness at its core. Hollinghurst has said of his work that:

"From the start I've tried to write books which began from a presumption of the gayness of the narrative position. To write about gay life from a gay perspective unapologetically and as naturally as most novels are written from a heterosexual position. When I started writing, that seemed a rather urgent and interesting thing to do. It hadn't really been done."

Stories that are told from the point of view of a central gay protagonist can do several things. They can put a straight audience in the unusual position of empathizing with a gay character, seeing events through his eyes, rather than just viewing him (even if sympathetically) from the outside.

Just as importantly, they can allow gay viewers to hear something like their own point of view being expressed for once, as opposed to always seeing themselves in terms of what they look like to straight people. In the first episode of LOB, a rather intrigued Catherine, who obviously considers homosexuality extremely exotic, asks “What's it like, then? Being gay?” Nick's reply is “To me it just feels totally normal.”

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