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Sandel
Set in the 1960s in an Oxford college, when being gay was still an offence punishable by imprisonment, 'Sandel' tells the story of a love affair between an undergraduate (David Rogers), and a cathedral choir boy (Antony Sandel).
Tony - beautiful, provocative, mischievous, sensitive and sometimes overwhelmed by the intensity of his own feelings - bewitches Rogers. Both are talented musicians, and Sandel's astonishing voice, which Rogers explores as his accompanist at the transient moment of glory which precedes it breaking, is soon central to the relationship.
Sensual, profound, often funny and never sentimental, Stewart provides a definitive analysis of same-sex love in the context of a relationship that puts sex in its place and reveals love as the one agent of the human condition that can set us free.
The setting of the novel in an Oxford college (actually Christ Church, which the author attended) and the well-observed description of life in an English choir-school - short trousers, boats on the river, afternoon tea and cricket before Evensong - along with the stylistic quality of the writing, places 'Sandel' in a tradition made famous by Evelyn Waugh ('Decline and Fall' and 'Brideshead Revisited'). There are echoes too of 'Maurice', the novel by E M Forster published after his death in 1970.
On both sides of the Atlantic, 'Sandel' became formative reading for a generation of boys growing up in the 1970s who knew their feelings fell outside the heterosexual male stereotype, and it remains a gay cult novel today, with prices on Amazon reaching thousands of dollars a copy.
But its fundamental message holds good for all people in all eras whatever their sexual persuasion, and is delivered with great subtlety and skill by a master craftsman.
Tony - beautiful, provocative, mischievous, sensitive and sometimes overwhelmed by the intensity of his own feelings - bewitches Rogers. Both are talented musicians, and Sandel's astonishing voice, which Rogers explores as his accompanist at the transient moment of glory which precedes it breaking, is soon central to the relationship.
Sensual, profound, often funny and never sentimental, Stewart provides a definitive analysis of same-sex love in the context of a relationship that puts sex in its place and reveals love as the one agent of the human condition that can set us free.
The setting of the novel in an Oxford college (actually Christ Church, which the author attended) and the well-observed description of life in an English choir-school - short trousers, boats on the river, afternoon tea and cricket before Evensong - along with the stylistic quality of the writing, places 'Sandel' in a tradition made famous by Evelyn Waugh ('Decline and Fall' and 'Brideshead Revisited'). There are echoes too of 'Maurice', the novel by E M Forster published after his death in 1970.
On both sides of the Atlantic, 'Sandel' became formative reading for a generation of boys growing up in the 1970s who knew their feelings fell outside the heterosexual male stereotype, and it remains a gay cult novel today, with prices on Amazon reaching thousands of dollars a copy.
But its fundamental message holds good for all people in all eras whatever their sexual persuasion, and is delivered with great subtlety and skill by a master craftsman.
258 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1968
14 people are currently reading
202 people want to read
About the author
Angus Stewart
4 books7 followersStewart was the third child of the novelist and Oxford academic J. I. M. Stewart (1906-1994) and Margaret Hardwick (1905-1979). Angus was born in Adelaide in 1936. The family returned to England in 1949 when Stewart's father became a Student (Fellow) of Christ Church, Oxford, and Angus was educated at Bryanston School and at his father's college.
Angus Stewart's first published work was ‘The Stile’, which appeared in the 1964 Faber anthology Stories by New Writers. He won the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize in 1965. His breakthrough to public and critical attention came in 1968 with his first novel, Sandel. Set in the pseudonymous St Cecilia’s College, Oxford, the book revolves around the unorthodox love between a 19-year-old undergraduate, David Rogers, and a 13-year-old chorister, Antony Sandel. The novel appears to have been based on real events, recounted by Stewart in an article under the pseudonym 'John Davis' in the 1961 anthology Underdogs, edited for Weidenfeld and Nicolson by Philip Toynbee. The story is treated with delicacy and sensitivity, and has a place in English literature comparable in importance to Roger Peyrefitte’s treatment of the same subject in his 1943 novel Les amitiés particulières. Over the past forty years Sandel has become a cult gay novel.
After Sandel Stewart moved to Tangier in Morocco, partly as a project in self-discovery and partly to experiment with drugs in a sympathetic environment. His Moroccan experiences resulted in two further books, a novel entitled Snow in Harvest (1969) and a travel diary entitled Tangier: A Writer’s Notebook (1977). He also wrote poetry, some of which was published as Sense and Inconsequence (1972), with an introduction by his father’s longstanding friend W. H. Auden.
After his mother’s death in 1979 Stewart returned to England, living for the final twenty years of his life in an annex to his father’s home at Fawler outside Oxford. He was an accomplished portrait photographer. For much of his life he suffered from clinical depression.
Angus Stewart's first published work was ‘The Stile’, which appeared in the 1964 Faber anthology Stories by New Writers. He won the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize in 1965. His breakthrough to public and critical attention came in 1968 with his first novel, Sandel. Set in the pseudonymous St Cecilia’s College, Oxford, the book revolves around the unorthodox love between a 19-year-old undergraduate, David Rogers, and a 13-year-old chorister, Antony Sandel. The novel appears to have been based on real events, recounted by Stewart in an article under the pseudonym 'John Davis' in the 1961 anthology Underdogs, edited for Weidenfeld and Nicolson by Philip Toynbee. The story is treated with delicacy and sensitivity, and has a place in English literature comparable in importance to Roger Peyrefitte’s treatment of the same subject in his 1943 novel Les amitiés particulières. Over the past forty years Sandel has become a cult gay novel.
After Sandel Stewart moved to Tangier in Morocco, partly as a project in self-discovery and partly to experiment with drugs in a sympathetic environment. His Moroccan experiences resulted in two further books, a novel entitled Snow in Harvest (1969) and a travel diary entitled Tangier: A Writer’s Notebook (1977). He also wrote poetry, some of which was published as Sense and Inconsequence (1972), with an introduction by his father’s longstanding friend W. H. Auden.
After his mother’s death in 1979 Stewart returned to England, living for the final twenty years of his life in an annex to his father’s home at Fawler outside Oxford. He was an accomplished portrait photographer. For much of his life he suffered from clinical depression.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 24, 2024
I had the day off today and thought, Why not read a romance novel? Why not read two of them? Why not read two romance novels that I figured would never be published today? And so I read this one and I also read this one.
This is a romance novel about the relationship between a 19-year-old college student and a 13-year-old kid enrolled at a nearby boarding school. The younger kid is a sporty, self-assured little fellow who is very much into his clothes. The older fellow is an iconoclastic, aimlessgroomer lover of younger fellows. I mean, he actually self-identifies as a pederast. The two even have a frank conversation about pederasty, although they spend most of their time together taking tea, eating snacks, going on day trips, and taking artistic photos. There is quite a lot about college life and about boarding school life, the monotony and sometimes the fun of it. There is no explicit sex, which was a relief.
The prose is excellent and the dialogue is so convincing, so real. Angus Stewart has a superior ability in conveying longing and making everyday activities feel both banal and mysterious. The book is suffused with melancholy and yet feels light, even casual. After an accident that pulls them apart then brings them back together, the novel ends abruptly, shortly after the day of their planned departure to Europe (financed by the younger lad's understanding guardian!). But it does not end in despair. The relationship runs its course; their lives go on. Overall, I enjoyed this odd, uncomfortable novel. Actually saw myself in the younger kid.
Wild that this book was apparently a bestselling, critically acclaimed novel that was reviewed by serious mainstream journals and whose protagonist was not rejected offhand by those reviewers. Not sure how I feel about that. The late 60s were definitely a different era!
The cover of the e-book is unsurprisingly less erotic:
This is a romance novel about the relationship between a 19-year-old college student and a 13-year-old kid enrolled at a nearby boarding school. The younger kid is a sporty, self-assured little fellow who is very much into his clothes. The older fellow is an iconoclastic, aimless
The prose is excellent and the dialogue is so convincing, so real. Angus Stewart has a superior ability in conveying longing and making everyday activities feel both banal and mysterious. The book is suffused with melancholy and yet feels light, even casual. After an accident that pulls them apart then brings them back together, the novel ends abruptly, shortly after the day of their planned departure to Europe (financed by the younger lad's understanding guardian!). But it does not end in despair. The relationship runs its course; their lives go on. Overall, I enjoyed this odd, uncomfortable novel. Actually saw myself in the younger kid.
Wild that this book was apparently a bestselling, critically acclaimed novel that was reviewed by serious mainstream journals and whose protagonist was not rejected offhand by those reviewers. Not sure how I feel about that. The late 60s were definitely a different era!
The cover of the e-book is unsurprisingly less erotic:
December 13, 2022
Frequent attempts are made to depict Sandel as a classic gay love story, rather than the classic pederastic one it is, often using the convenient euphemism of “boy” to describe 19-year-old David and so brush aside the critical difference in age between him and 13-year-old Tony. I’m relieved the new publishers have not succumbed to this nonsense, as they might have for marketing purposes, for it must have Angus Stewart, a lifelong lover of boys, turning in his grave. After asking David “Am I [a homosexual] because I’m attracted to you?” and establishing that a pederast means “someone who loves boys”, Tony asks him “What’s the specific term for a boy who loves a man?” to which David replies “I don’t know that there is one. Perhaps people don’t take you seriously enough to invent a special word.” How much less ambiguous can one get?
Other reviewers have said enough about the literary merits of this deeply moving and loosely autobiographical love story whose emotional authenticity shines through every page. I shall instead confine myself to some observations on how tragically the climate for its reception has changed since 1968 when it received such critical acclaim from national newspapers. I may be in a peculiar position to do so due to having myself just published a boarding-school love story between a boy and young master for which Sandel is by far the closest precedent. The main differences are that my boy protagonist was a year older in physical development, which inevitably affected the tone of his affair, and more crucially that it is set in 1984 rather than the mid-fifties, so reactions to its discovery were devastating.
Incredibly, one recent reviewer has implied a republished Sandel could expect a much more favourable reception “now that we live in more tolerant times.” What faith in the inevitability of progress it must take to be so blind to the vicious intolerance on this subject that has exploded over the last generation! My feelings rereading Sandel for the first time since I was myself David’s age have been overwhelmingly sad for this very reason. Writing in the increasingly liberal sixties, it must have seemed to Stewart that The Sunday Telegraph’s acknowledgement of “a love which truly exists and is not despicable” might be the foundation stone of a golden age of toleration and understanding. How bitterly disillusioned he must later have become!
It is merely difficult to imagine today an aunt who would think or dare to rescue from their outraged school her 13-year-old nephew caught in his master’s bed, and dispatch the lovers on a ten-week honeymoon in Italy. It is impossible though to imagine anything but imminent catastrophe if today a choirboy being interviewed by newsmen were to tell them about his love for his teacher and the latter punched one of them to the floor for making snide remarks about it. The threat “You shouldn’t have done that,” couldn’t possibly sound “unconvincing.” The newsmen would know only too well that a visit to the police would ensure an investigation almost bound to wreck the lives of both man and boy.
A difference in the reception of his and my novels is also I believe a sad reflection of our relatively closed-minded era. Stewart painstakingly addressed the moral complications involved in a love affair between a choirboy and a young man through ironic exchanges between David and his old school friend Bruce Lang. Not only were newspaper reviews as positive as quoted on Amazon towards the love depicted, but the original Times review of May 1968 had no patience with this drag on the story, concluding in an otherwise entirely favourable review that “the middle of the book indulges too many of these debates. Lang is a bore.” Though my protagonists in a more hostile age had no confidants with whom to discuss their affair, I still made them puzzle over society’s objections themselves. Yet in contrast to Stewart, I’ve been lambasted for glossing over “child abuse”, as if it has anything whatsoever to do with love stories that are self-evidently nothing of the sort and which an open-minded reader would judge on their own terms.
One wonders how long it will be before the child abuse lobby succeeds in imposing on productions of Romeo and Juliet the interruption of the most romantic scenes with sour warnings that despite the strongest contrary indications love involving a pubescent is always really no more than false cover for a satanic plot to satisfy selfish lust.
Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander’s Choice, an Eton boy’s love story,
https://www.amazon.com/dp/191457107X.
Other reviewers have said enough about the literary merits of this deeply moving and loosely autobiographical love story whose emotional authenticity shines through every page. I shall instead confine myself to some observations on how tragically the climate for its reception has changed since 1968 when it received such critical acclaim from national newspapers. I may be in a peculiar position to do so due to having myself just published a boarding-school love story between a boy and young master for which Sandel is by far the closest precedent. The main differences are that my boy protagonist was a year older in physical development, which inevitably affected the tone of his affair, and more crucially that it is set in 1984 rather than the mid-fifties, so reactions to its discovery were devastating.
Incredibly, one recent reviewer has implied a republished Sandel could expect a much more favourable reception “now that we live in more tolerant times.” What faith in the inevitability of progress it must take to be so blind to the vicious intolerance on this subject that has exploded over the last generation! My feelings rereading Sandel for the first time since I was myself David’s age have been overwhelmingly sad for this very reason. Writing in the increasingly liberal sixties, it must have seemed to Stewart that The Sunday Telegraph’s acknowledgement of “a love which truly exists and is not despicable” might be the foundation stone of a golden age of toleration and understanding. How bitterly disillusioned he must later have become!
It is merely difficult to imagine today an aunt who would think or dare to rescue from their outraged school her 13-year-old nephew caught in his master’s bed, and dispatch the lovers on a ten-week honeymoon in Italy. It is impossible though to imagine anything but imminent catastrophe if today a choirboy being interviewed by newsmen were to tell them about his love for his teacher and the latter punched one of them to the floor for making snide remarks about it. The threat “You shouldn’t have done that,” couldn’t possibly sound “unconvincing.” The newsmen would know only too well that a visit to the police would ensure an investigation almost bound to wreck the lives of both man and boy.
A difference in the reception of his and my novels is also I believe a sad reflection of our relatively closed-minded era. Stewart painstakingly addressed the moral complications involved in a love affair between a choirboy and a young man through ironic exchanges between David and his old school friend Bruce Lang. Not only were newspaper reviews as positive as quoted on Amazon towards the love depicted, but the original Times review of May 1968 had no patience with this drag on the story, concluding in an otherwise entirely favourable review that “the middle of the book indulges too many of these debates. Lang is a bore.” Though my protagonists in a more hostile age had no confidants with whom to discuss their affair, I still made them puzzle over society’s objections themselves. Yet in contrast to Stewart, I’ve been lambasted for glossing over “child abuse”, as if it has anything whatsoever to do with love stories that are self-evidently nothing of the sort and which an open-minded reader would judge on their own terms.
One wonders how long it will be before the child abuse lobby succeeds in imposing on productions of Romeo and Juliet the interruption of the most romantic scenes with sour warnings that despite the strongest contrary indications love involving a pubescent is always really no more than false cover for a satanic plot to satisfy selfish lust.
Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander’s Choice, an Eton boy’s love story,
https://www.amazon.com/dp/191457107X.
August 3, 2012
I had to re-read this whole book for page 198. No not to just read page 198, but the build-up to that point MAKES page 198 all the more poignant. This book eternally has my heart. I wish it would be re-issued, or even better, made into a movie. I can see it all. Then again I kind of like it is almost a dream and the reality of a production would never live up to my expectations.
January 15, 2014
I see that my "review" was in fact a comment, so I have added it to my reviews.
This is an Oxford story and a story of youth. It is a (Uranian) love story, a very delicate one, and a highly successful book, of considerably higher value and much better written than one would suppose from its muted reception and the fact that it is today largely forgotten. It is nostalgic on two if not three or even more counts:
1) For everyone's lost "salad days" and the secret garden left during adolescence and which some seek, most often vainly, to return to during their adult lives.
2) It is set amid the "dreaming spires", with all the nostalgia one would expect from an Oxford college setting.
3) There is nostalgia here for all first love.
4) There is a faint hint here at the setting sun of Empire, we are in the nineteen fifties, while Britain is abandoning Empire, as someone once put it, when "tired hands let slip in a short time the vastest Empire in the history of mankind."
"A love not despicable", wrote the Daily Telegraph reviewer according to the blurb on the back of this long out-of-print masterpiece. I doubt any daily British newspaper would dare bto write a favourable review of it at all today, let alone praise it in such terms, for contrary to popular belief, the Britain of the beginning of the twenty-first century is in many respects a much less tolerant place than it was at the time that this book was published. "Sandel" portrays a world of tradition in which a love comes to be which is of a nature that is indeed problematical but which nevertheless deservbes better than to be persistently misrepresented and despised by the great majority, a love upon which political and social commentators, be they politically "right" or "left", comment always in fear of popular opinion and of the media which cater to that opinion. The love which drew Zeus to Ganymede is the subject of this story written not as a pornographic provocation or a warning or Rake's Progress but as, oh shock, a love story.
This is an Oxford story and a story of youth. It is a (Uranian) love story, a very delicate one, and a highly successful book, of considerably higher value and much better written than one would suppose from its muted reception and the fact that it is today largely forgotten. It is nostalgic on two if not three or even more counts:
1) For everyone's lost "salad days" and the secret garden left during adolescence and which some seek, most often vainly, to return to during their adult lives.
2) It is set amid the "dreaming spires", with all the nostalgia one would expect from an Oxford college setting.
3) There is nostalgia here for all first love.
4) There is a faint hint here at the setting sun of Empire, we are in the nineteen fifties, while Britain is abandoning Empire, as someone once put it, when "tired hands let slip in a short time the vastest Empire in the history of mankind."
"A love not despicable", wrote the Daily Telegraph reviewer according to the blurb on the back of this long out-of-print masterpiece. I doubt any daily British newspaper would dare bto write a favourable review of it at all today, let alone praise it in such terms, for contrary to popular belief, the Britain of the beginning of the twenty-first century is in many respects a much less tolerant place than it was at the time that this book was published. "Sandel" portrays a world of tradition in which a love comes to be which is of a nature that is indeed problematical but which nevertheless deservbes better than to be persistently misrepresented and despised by the great majority, a love upon which political and social commentators, be they politically "right" or "left", comment always in fear of popular opinion and of the media which cater to that opinion. The love which drew Zeus to Ganymede is the subject of this story written not as a pornographic provocation or a warning or Rake's Progress but as, oh shock, a love story.
November 18, 2025
This book is a classic, but to be honest it has out-lived its era. It is one of those odd boy love novels that back in the 1960s (and later) attracted ecstatic reviews - which unfortunately says more about the way English prep and public schools had affected so many, even ostensibly, 'regular' men. The extraordinary thing is not that the boy love theme was ignored but that praise was heaped on such a really fatuous and unbelievable storyline.
If you can ignore the bizarre 'love' story at its centre you will then be struck at how utterly unbelievable it is - purest wish fulfilment - the 12 year old choirboy is does not speak or act the way a real boy, even a boy at a choir school, would have acted and spoken in the 1950s but in the way boys in pederastic love stories act because it is the 12 year old not the 19 year old who is the sexual predator - that old trop that boy wanted, needed, was asking for it - the little tart. The adult is never the aggressor, the instigator the one whose demands that a boy lie down and spread his legss, no he accept, almost wistfully that the boy needs something else - all those lonely, orphan boys looking for an adult male to turn to - another trop of this ridiculous boy love literature. That the boys 'aunt' and guardian more or less blesses and hands the boy over is even more problematic if not bizarre. I can't imagine the author knew many women of any age - women even in the past had a clear eye for problem men like our hero - and it was thanks to women finally putting their foot down that England's homosocial boarding schools became co-educational - even if at the start it was to stop older boys bothering the younger.
None of this had anything to do with homosexuality or being gay - indeed almost all boy love authors (I don't know about Stewart) would vehemently deny that they were homosexual, never mind horror or horrors, gay. These boy lovers saw themselves as exercising as a 'mentoring' role were the buggering of young boys was a 'maturing' process that formed the boys into adults - although in truth the formation provided was more akin to that provided to geese to produce froie gras.
The problem is the reaction against silly and stupid books like this is that excellent works of literature
like 'For a Lost Soldier' by Rudi van Dantzig (the novel not the film) or 'A Crocodile Of Choirboys' by C.J. Bradbury Robinson are tarred with the same brush though they do not romanticise who those prey on young boys.
I can't recommend this book unless you are an aficionado of old fashioned boy love novels a la Fritz Peters.
If you can ignore the bizarre 'love' story at its centre you will then be struck at how utterly unbelievable it is - purest wish fulfilment - the 12 year old choirboy is does not speak or act the way a real boy, even a boy at a choir school, would have acted and spoken in the 1950s but in the way boys in pederastic love stories act because it is the 12 year old not the 19 year old who is the sexual predator - that old trop that boy wanted, needed, was asking for it - the little tart. The adult is never the aggressor, the instigator the one whose demands that a boy lie down and spread his legss, no he accept, almost wistfully that the boy needs something else - all those lonely, orphan boys looking for an adult male to turn to - another trop of this ridiculous boy love literature. That the boys 'aunt' and guardian more or less blesses and hands the boy over is even more problematic if not bizarre. I can't imagine the author knew many women of any age - women even in the past had a clear eye for problem men like our hero - and it was thanks to women finally putting their foot down that England's homosocial boarding schools became co-educational - even if at the start it was to stop older boys bothering the younger.
None of this had anything to do with homosexuality or being gay - indeed almost all boy love authors (I don't know about Stewart) would vehemently deny that they were homosexual, never mind horror or horrors, gay. These boy lovers saw themselves as exercising as a 'mentoring' role were the buggering of young boys was a 'maturing' process that formed the boys into adults - although in truth the formation provided was more akin to that provided to geese to produce froie gras.
The problem is the reaction against silly and stupid books like this is that excellent works of literature
like 'For a Lost Soldier' by Rudi van Dantzig (the novel not the film) or 'A Crocodile Of Choirboys' by C.J. Bradbury Robinson are tarred with the same brush though they do not romanticise who those prey on young boys.
I can't recommend this book unless you are an aficionado of old fashioned boy love novels a la Fritz Peters.
November 6, 2023
There are already many eloquent reviews here which elucidate the many merits of this book, as well as to acknowledge its importance in the genre of work that explores the intricacies of pederastic same-sex relationships. Nevertheless, I would like to add my own, if this is only done in a spirit of general participation.
To say I enjoyed 'Sandel' would be an understatement. This book enveloped me completely and for a few blissful weeks, as I read and re-read it's passages - for a while it served to change my outlook on the world around me and served to give me a greater sense of wellbeing. I can only suggest that this was because it struck a deep chord within me. The heady combination of a love story told initially in a rather romanticised Oxford college setting, and later a choir school, and together with the incredibly well written if slightly antiquated prose of Angus Stewart, proved irresistible to my sensibilities.
Although the crux of the story unfolds specifically in an ecclesiastical school setting, I found it to be a work that at a turn can evoke sudden and poignant long forgotten memories of moments typical to the boyhood experiences of any English schoolboy educated in a traditional prep school setting. For me, certainly, it offered a certain nostalgia in this respect.
The characters in the story are beautifully complex and develop through the pages as we get to know both them and the events which have shaped them; and the interactions between them are described with insight, frank honesty, and a deep understanding of the youthful passion of the relationship between the boys. The central character "David" is portrayed as exciting and confident, whilst at the same time we are shown his fragilities. His younger charge ,"Tony" exposes vanity and candidness as well as occasional cruelty towards both David and his choir, and this is perfectly balanced with Anthony's obvious need to be loved.
To say I enjoyed 'Sandel' would be an understatement. This book enveloped me completely and for a few blissful weeks, as I read and re-read it's passages - for a while it served to change my outlook on the world around me and served to give me a greater sense of wellbeing. I can only suggest that this was because it struck a deep chord within me. The heady combination of a love story told initially in a rather romanticised Oxford college setting, and later a choir school, and together with the incredibly well written if slightly antiquated prose of Angus Stewart, proved irresistible to my sensibilities.
Although the crux of the story unfolds specifically in an ecclesiastical school setting, I found it to be a work that at a turn can evoke sudden and poignant long forgotten memories of moments typical to the boyhood experiences of any English schoolboy educated in a traditional prep school setting. For me, certainly, it offered a certain nostalgia in this respect.
The characters in the story are beautifully complex and develop through the pages as we get to know both them and the events which have shaped them; and the interactions between them are described with insight, frank honesty, and a deep understanding of the youthful passion of the relationship between the boys. The central character "David" is portrayed as exciting and confident, whilst at the same time we are shown his fragilities. His younger charge ,"Tony" exposes vanity and candidness as well as occasional cruelty towards both David and his choir, and this is perfectly balanced with Anthony's obvious need to be loved.
January 21, 2016
I'm not offended by this book's controversial subject matter. Controversy keeps us on our toes. But I am offended by the writing, which is overwrought, alternately precious and self-consciously witty in the pretentious manner of a young intellectual. Considering that Stewart was nostalgically recounting his own college years, it's at least as authentic as it is tiresome. There's a story worth examining here, but it's probably one that could have been boiled down to a much smaller size. After the pointless asides and barely-pertinent rhapsodizing about everything from the sky to the pavement are jettisoned, there is a passable longish short story lurking here. Leave some of the more attractive ramblings in and maybe you'd even have something approaching a novella. But a full-length novel? Not without a lot of indulgence on the reader's part.
April 2, 2017
Sandal by a British author Angus Stewart aka Michael Innes and published in 1968 is about a relationship between a 19 y/o Oxford student and an initially prepubescent 13 y/o public school student at St. Cecilia's adjacent to Oxford. I think St. Cecilia's is fictional as I could only find such a school in Ireland. The novel makes a compelling case for the appropriateness of said relationship. See Edmund Marlowe's Review for an excellent historical-context review of this work.
I will not comment on the appropriateness of the relationship between David and Tony other than saying it seemed like real love, though we do not know how it turned out when they both became adults (whatever that means)
I found the book a difficult read. I am very familiar with British fiction, and rather prefer it to American literature. But this novel was a problem for me, being so full of 1960's public school slang and Oxford slang, I would have had to research nearly every sentence for full understanding. E.g., a concept like "battel" which I generally got, but still can not use the word appropriately, I think. I doubt I would have read it in the '60s, having to use a library rather than online searches to understand the text.
Even so the work was satisfying and will need re-reading. 7 of 10★
I will not comment on the appropriateness of the relationship between David and Tony other than saying it seemed like real love, though we do not know how it turned out when they both became adults (whatever that means)
I found the book a difficult read. I am very familiar with British fiction, and rather prefer it to American literature. But this novel was a problem for me, being so full of 1960's public school slang and Oxford slang, I would have had to research nearly every sentence for full understanding. E.g., a concept like "battel" which I generally got, but still can not use the word appropriately, I think. I doubt I would have read it in the '60s, having to use a library rather than online searches to understand the text.
Even so the work was satisfying and will need re-reading. 7 of 10★
August 9, 2014
I might have had overly high expectations because I had wanted to read this novel for such a long time when available only in horribly expensive dead tree editions. I am afraid it bored me for the most part and for the rest I wanted to slap irritating choirboy Anthony Sandel and to tell his poor besotted teacher friend to grow up, get a life and find a nice man worthy of his romantic longings.
I suppose the novel was groundbreaking in its day but it has not aged well and the subject matter made me very uncomfortable. As for the ending, well, put it this way, it stretches credulity just a bit, nice though it might be to find a positive outcome in a gay love story set written in the 60s.
I would recommend instead "The Real Tom Brown's Schooldays" by Chris Kent which might not have the same literary merit but is a much more enjoyable read, positive in outcome, too.
I suppose the novel was groundbreaking in its day but it has not aged well and the subject matter made me very uncomfortable. As for the ending, well, put it this way, it stretches credulity just a bit, nice though it might be to find a positive outcome in a gay love story set written in the 60s.
I would recommend instead "The Real Tom Brown's Schooldays" by Chris Kent which might not have the same literary merit but is a much more enjoyable read, positive in outcome, too.
March 4, 2018
One character in the book says, at one point, something to the effect that what turns one person on horrifies another... I wasn’t horrified. But I was bored more often than I would have liked, and sometimes annoyed.
For starters, the main character waxes lyrical about a blond choirboy whose voice has not yet broken: good grief, could it get any more cliched than that?
The story is supposedly loosely autobiographical, but I can’t imagine that Sandel reflects very closely whatever boy the author happened to get involved with in real life. Literary language is always artificial, but what real life 13 year old would lapse quite as often as Sandel does in such un-child-like talk? In fact, Sandel seemed to me just about as credible as the swallow who, in the last few chapters, happily drinks milk and eats seeds. Swallows are insectivores; and no bird goes for milk - it makes them ill.
The conceit of Roger’s “noble” resistance also strains credibility. It seems to strike a false note for the author to create this fantasy of an oversexed boy throwing himself at the author’s own literary projection (Rogers) at every possible occasion, only to then make his literary projection refuse him.
Half-way through the book I decided I should push my annoyance aside and try to read this using an ‘enlarged mentality’ (see Hannah Arendt on critical judgment), so as to see Sandel’s and Rogers’ relationship from their own perspective. It was slightly better when I approached the book that way, but only slightly. Mostly, I remained unmoved. I guess that, ultimately, Rogers’ infatuation with Sandel (and Peter before him) just sounded silly to me - over and beyond the undeniable silliness of all people in love. Like when Roger gets jealous at dust because it’s touching Sandel’s hair... C’mon!
Finally, while the book made me smile on occasion, mostly the humour fell flat with me - it seemed a bit laboured, and lacked sparkle.
For starters, the main character waxes lyrical about a blond choirboy whose voice has not yet broken: good grief, could it get any more cliched than that?
The story is supposedly loosely autobiographical, but I can’t imagine that Sandel reflects very closely whatever boy the author happened to get involved with in real life. Literary language is always artificial, but what real life 13 year old would lapse quite as often as Sandel does in such un-child-like talk? In fact, Sandel seemed to me just about as credible as the swallow who, in the last few chapters, happily drinks milk and eats seeds. Swallows are insectivores; and no bird goes for milk - it makes them ill.
The conceit of Roger’s “noble” resistance also strains credibility. It seems to strike a false note for the author to create this fantasy of an oversexed boy throwing himself at the author’s own literary projection (Rogers) at every possible occasion, only to then make his literary projection refuse him.
Half-way through the book I decided I should push my annoyance aside and try to read this using an ‘enlarged mentality’ (see Hannah Arendt on critical judgment), so as to see Sandel’s and Rogers’ relationship from their own perspective. It was slightly better when I approached the book that way, but only slightly. Mostly, I remained unmoved. I guess that, ultimately, Rogers’ infatuation with Sandel (and Peter before him) just sounded silly to me - over and beyond the undeniable silliness of all people in love. Like when Roger gets jealous at dust because it’s touching Sandel’s hair... C’mon!
Finally, while the book made me smile on occasion, mostly the humour fell flat with me - it seemed a bit laboured, and lacked sparkle.
April 29, 2020
British prep school and affiliated college boys
You could write a book about the characters and activities of young boys and men building friendships and relationships amid the staff oversight and educational adventures as secrets and stories are woven to obscure reality and desire. No one is safe and rumors are more rampant then the lion on a coat of arms. Church obligations and mysterious ceremonies are shrouded in tradition and symbology to meet the young boys committed to the rules to avoid punishment. Only the swallow Byrd can escape in his drugged state. Everyone else goes thru the motions repeatedly and unemotionally if the barrel is full.
You could write a book about the characters and activities of young boys and men building friendships and relationships amid the staff oversight and educational adventures as secrets and stories are woven to obscure reality and desire. No one is safe and rumors are more rampant then the lion on a coat of arms. Church obligations and mysterious ceremonies are shrouded in tradition and symbology to meet the young boys committed to the rules to avoid punishment. Only the swallow Byrd can escape in his drugged state. Everyone else goes thru the motions repeatedly and unemotionally if the barrel is full.
January 30, 2014
I wasn't overly impressed with this book and wouldn't recommend it. The writing I found to be sloppy, jumping from one scene to another, often without clarity. And, while this isn't the author's fault, I found it to be a rather dated novel.
December 20, 2013
A tender and beautiful love story about a nineteen-year-old undergraduate at Oxford and a thirteen-year-old schoolboy, Sandel is very moving.
October 16, 2025
Oxford in den 60er Jahren: der Student David Rogers begegnet dem Chorjungen Antony Sandel. David ist fasziniert von dem Jungen, sowohl von dessen Stimme als auch von seiner Art. Mit dreizehn Jahren ist Tony oft noch sehr kindlich, manchmal aber auch schon sehr reif. Beide sind talentierte Musiker, aber die Liebe zur Musik ist nicht das Einzige, was sie verbindet.
Ich habe mich am Anfang mit Davids Person schwer getan. Er wirkt auf mich arrogant, oft grausam besonders den jüngeren Schülern gegenüber. Er trifft Tony durch Zufall und versucht vom ersten Moment an, ihn für sich zu gewinnen. Das hat mich zunächst fast schon abgestoßen. Man sollte auch nicht vergessen, dass David selbst noch sehr jung ist, gerade mal neunzehn. Trotzdem waren meine Gefühle ihm gegenüber während der gesamten Lektüre zwiespältig.
Tony ist anfangs geschmeichelt von der Aufmerksamkeit des älteren Studenten und versucht, diese Aufmerksamkeit für sich auszunutzen. Im Lauf der Zeit werden seine Aktionen immer zielgerichteter: anfangs will er nur Geschenke bekommen, später provoziert er David richtig. Seine Gefühle sind ihm durchaus bewusst: er gibt zu, dass er in den Älteren verliebt ist. Er weiß auch, dass "so etwas" verboten ist. Trotzdem trifft er sich immer wieder mit David.
Über dessen Gefühle bin ich mir nie wirklich klar. Die Situation verwirrt ihn und sicherlich empfindet er etwas für Tony. Aber ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob seine Gefühle wirklich dem Jungen gelten oder ob er es einfach nur genießt, verliebt zu sein.
Sandel beschreibt sehr schön die Situation an den englischen Colleges zu der Zeit. Die kurzen Hosen der jungen Schüler, die scheinbar erwachsenen älteren Studenten und das Chaos, das entstehen kann wenn man erwachsen wird. Trotzdem fiel es mir schwer, bei dem Buch zu bleiben. Wirklich fesseln konnte es mich nicht.
Ich habe mich am Anfang mit Davids Person schwer getan. Er wirkt auf mich arrogant, oft grausam besonders den jüngeren Schülern gegenüber. Er trifft Tony durch Zufall und versucht vom ersten Moment an, ihn für sich zu gewinnen. Das hat mich zunächst fast schon abgestoßen. Man sollte auch nicht vergessen, dass David selbst noch sehr jung ist, gerade mal neunzehn. Trotzdem waren meine Gefühle ihm gegenüber während der gesamten Lektüre zwiespältig.
Tony ist anfangs geschmeichelt von der Aufmerksamkeit des älteren Studenten und versucht, diese Aufmerksamkeit für sich auszunutzen. Im Lauf der Zeit werden seine Aktionen immer zielgerichteter: anfangs will er nur Geschenke bekommen, später provoziert er David richtig. Seine Gefühle sind ihm durchaus bewusst: er gibt zu, dass er in den Älteren verliebt ist. Er weiß auch, dass "so etwas" verboten ist. Trotzdem trifft er sich immer wieder mit David.
Über dessen Gefühle bin ich mir nie wirklich klar. Die Situation verwirrt ihn und sicherlich empfindet er etwas für Tony. Aber ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob seine Gefühle wirklich dem Jungen gelten oder ob er es einfach nur genießt, verliebt zu sein.
Sandel beschreibt sehr schön die Situation an den englischen Colleges zu der Zeit. Die kurzen Hosen der jungen Schüler, die scheinbar erwachsenen älteren Studenten und das Chaos, das entstehen kann wenn man erwachsen wird. Trotzdem fiel es mir schwer, bei dem Buch zu bleiben. Wirklich fesseln konnte es mich nicht.
January 8, 2019
I agree with the reviewer that said Anthony should be slapped. The ending made me think that some pages were missing from the copy I read. I had had the book for a while and had not read it and now I wish I hadn't; it was like biting into a dessert you have wanted for so long and finding it had gone bad.
March 9, 2021
I found this book to be truly engaging, despite its not-so-modern language. It deals with a topic that is undoubtedly controversial and debated. However, he does it in the simple, romantic and naive way typical of boys of that age. The characters are well defined. Sometimes a bit difficult to relate to, as it is set in a boarding school from the 1960s, so it is light-years away from the lifestyle of "modern" kids. However, I find it a pleasant, exciting and intelligent book. It should be read without prejudices and preconceptions, leaving room for the exploration of the human soul and instinct.
October 1, 2018
I would say this book was more about 13 year old Tony being curious about being gay without going to far with 19 year old David it didnt take to long to work out what Tony wanted When David was taking photos of tony for a record cover when he finished he rolled up his shirt sleeves as he was hot That's when Tony ask could he take his clothes off as he felt hot and David gave his blessing without any concern and at also takes photos of a now naked Tony who requested it was also clear why Tony started putting his hand in the pocket of David well it wasn't for sweets all in all a very gentle book of 2 friends who had feelings for each other and Angus Stewart also confirms by the actions of Tony regardless of age young people do have feelings and are fully aware of their emotions A lot of youngsters these days are coming out and openly admitting their gay and proud despite the know it all keep sex straight ban nudity elements claiming they know best and children have no idea about sex until there 16 and 5 minutes old well done Angus Stewart for not just a nice gentle read but for making a bold stament
2s
2s
January 17, 2020
First of all, I enjoyed the story a lot. Secondly, POTENTIAL SPOILERS.
The end was too open and rushed for me, and the grammar was appalling. But it was one of those stories that seemed to take my thoughts about life and love, and convey them back to me in words I couldn't find for myself.
The following extract is of David's thoughts as he is being questioned about his involvement with another boy. He hasn't felt the need to hide his homosexuality, and this has been his downfall. Though David was never given the words for his feelings, his inability to express himself is interpreted as dishonesty.
'His isolation was a trance. He knew it was a defence he had built about himself, and that it was fatal to remain in it. Yet he hadn't the power to break out. He sat, half listening, and was only dimly resentful of the man's inability to see that it was the weight of love alone with which he couldn't cope. He was silent because he had to be. You couldn't talk of love. Its size made it inexpressible. It couldn't come out through the mouth. Hints of it might, but you could only show it all if you could somehow hand over your brain. Now he was seeing the effects of releasing those hints. Their inadequacy tortured him, baring his loneliness.' (P17)
The story jumps, and we don't find out until much later that the boy he was involved with had hung himself. David had cut him down. This is the reason for his resolve against Lang's opinions of truth, love, honesty, and sin. It is also the cause of his alcoholism and reckless behaviour.
I often found myself lost amongst the plot and characters. It switches between several different modes of writing, and it is important to recognise when the tone has changed and what is happening when it does (is David being honest? Is he dreaming about better times?). A second reading of the book is highly recommended for those who want to fully understand the workings of this story. I ended up making little cartoons of all the characters, as I found their appearances sporadic.
The end was too open and rushed for me, and the grammar was appalling. But it was one of those stories that seemed to take my thoughts about life and love, and convey them back to me in words I couldn't find for myself.
The following extract is of David's thoughts as he is being questioned about his involvement with another boy. He hasn't felt the need to hide his homosexuality, and this has been his downfall. Though David was never given the words for his feelings, his inability to express himself is interpreted as dishonesty.
'His isolation was a trance. He knew it was a defence he had built about himself, and that it was fatal to remain in it. Yet he hadn't the power to break out. He sat, half listening, and was only dimly resentful of the man's inability to see that it was the weight of love alone with which he couldn't cope. He was silent because he had to be. You couldn't talk of love. Its size made it inexpressible. It couldn't come out through the mouth. Hints of it might, but you could only show it all if you could somehow hand over your brain. Now he was seeing the effects of releasing those hints. Their inadequacy tortured him, baring his loneliness.' (P17)
The story jumps, and we don't find out until much later that the boy he was involved with had hung himself. David had cut him down. This is the reason for his resolve against Lang's opinions of truth, love, honesty, and sin. It is also the cause of his alcoholism and reckless behaviour.
I often found myself lost amongst the plot and characters. It switches between several different modes of writing, and it is important to recognise when the tone has changed and what is happening when it does (is David being honest? Is he dreaming about better times?). A second reading of the book is highly recommended for those who want to fully understand the workings of this story. I ended up making little cartoons of all the characters, as I found their appearances sporadic.
February 5, 2017
This may be the most confusing book, with the most out of left field, depressing end I've ever encountered. In parts beautifully written, in parts esoteric, and with a message that seems to completely undermine itself in the final chapter, I have to mark it high for prose and meaning, but low for plot and resolution
October 19, 2022
Non-sensical plot devices, intellectual discussions which amount to nothing, a romance which is more angst and passion than an actual relationship, somo social critique that never goes beyond accusing the world of coldness and hypocrisy, obscure language, sloppy narrative... The novel is all over the place and ends up doing none of it well.
January 8, 2014
A Masterpiece of the writer’s art – tender, evocative and sensitive.
See my full review at Gerry B's Book Reviews
See my full review at Gerry B's Book Reviews
April 22, 2017
This is another British novel set at Oxford or somewhere else in the confines of the upper class. The story is dependably well written and the subject is interesting, but the ending is rushed an a little unconvincing. Overall, the good aspects of this novel stand out, and I recommend it to readers of gay fiction.
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