In reading this novel, one understands how momentous these years were. Personally, Nick comes to terms with his homosexuality. He even excels as a sexual being, charming men at bathhouses and seducing them into threesomes with him and his Lebanese lover. Politically, the conservatives win a renewal under Margaret Thatcher’s leadership, and she even makes an appearance at Gerald’s and his wife, Rachel’s, anniversary party (She’s dresses, as Gerald’s daughter Catherine jibes, "like a county and western singer"). And in these three years the AIDS epidemic emerges. The disease ambushes and ravages the lives and culture of gay men. It also precipitates their even more sever alienation from the mainstream.
Even surrounded by all this volatility, the novel’s characters act as though quarantined to any influence that might alter their egocentric drives. Between the sexual liaisons, the ostentatious dinner parties, and the family vacations to France, there is, seemingly, no time for work or any other serious distraction. Play is what these characters do. They drink scotch, they mingle, they swim, they do cocaine, and they fornicate. It is, therefore, easy to underestimate the stakes of all this leisure fun. It feels decadent and airy, which it is. But it is also heavy with strategy and consequence. Anthropologists have called this "deep play" in order to distinguish it from play that is less symbolically representative of status, esteem, morality, dignity, honor, or respect. In a broad cultural sense, gay men enjoying public sex in a bathhouse are not just getting off, but are also asserting their sexual rights and freedom. More narrowly, whom you schmooze at a dinner party and your success at impressing him or her will either spur forward your career or rein it to a complete halt. These are just two example of deep play in The Line of Beauty, but almost all of its fun has the dual quality of being both vacuous and severe.
Nick's success in this world depends on his ability to gauge the stakes and manipulate the results of his participation in all this activity. Unfortunately, he seems naive and unaware that he is doing anything more than kibitzing with the most powerful people in England. He benefits throughout from his connections, accepting cars, cocaine, and cash from wealthy lovers and politicians. But it’s a run that will last only so long as it doesn’t cost people anything or advances them in some way. It’s a petty world and a petty game. Nevertheless, as Nick eventually learns, if your gonna play you’d better learn the rules.
