The Swimming-Pool Library Audio CD – CD, August 5, 2014

I've managed to avoid reading this for so long because of my aversion to ghetto-fied culture. Instead of gay novels, gay movies or gay plays, I'd prefer novels and movies and plays with gay people in them. I like my representation desegregated, thanks.But while definitely a gay novel, "The Swimming Pool Library" is extremely well-written and -crafted; it's also stuffed to the gills with lewd and graphic sex. It's Maugham with a dirty mind, Waugh with a lascivious smile.In pre-AIDS London, William Beckwith is a young, idle Adonis who's drawn to barely-legal working class men. He's a faithless, promiscuous narcissist who demands fidelity while being incapable of it himself.His misanthropy is barely concealed under a shallow veneer of insincere smiles and sarcasm (a trait I recognize from more than a few upper class British twits I've met in my professional life).Beckwith makes a daily habit of picking up lower class men and cruising the showers at the local health club, a routine interrupted by a blooming friendship with an aging member of the house of lords.For lack of anything better to do, he begins to explore the gay past (via the journals and letters of his new octogenarian friend). It's quickly apparent that white gay history can be summarized by a host of c-words: classism, colonialism, condescension, cruelty, complacency.A big reveal toward the end implicating Beckwith's legacy with the systemic oppression of gay people upsets him for an afternoon, but his mood lifts in the gym shower when he encounters his next fresh, hungry distraction.It's brave writing, not just because of the unapologetically explicit sex, but also in its fairly ruthless depiction of white privilege in gay culture.It's gutsy of Hollinghurst to build a world around this unsavory guy, but we follow because it's a well-told tale, worthwhile despite (and because of) the unflattering image reflected in the gilt-framed mirror he hands us.

This is the first "gay genre" book I've read. I bought it because the author just won the 2004 Booker Prize. Alan Hollinghurst writes beautifully. His prose has a certain limpid clarity accomplished the very best English authors. Its form is that of a narrative memoir, and contains within it, in part, diary entries by one of the main characters. In all, The Swimming Pool Library has more of the overall "feel" of a diary than a work of fiction. Hollinghurst's attention to detail is superb; his descriptions of the physical aspects of people, landscapes, and architecture are superb, and his evocation on London night life has a real feeling of authenticity. Strange to say, for a gay man Hollinghurst seems to take a surprisingly dispassionate approach to romance in this book. The author is quite spare in entering into the psychology of his characters in toto, which, in a sense, is appropriate, since the human heart -both our own and others'- remains, for the most part, a delicious and maddening mystery. The only reason why I did not give this five stars is that the last ten percent of the book seems to become a bit befuddled in its plotting, and what resolutions there are appear to be a bit rushed, and not altogether as tightly planned as the previous 90%. In the end, The Swimming Pool Library just seems to peter out, and whatever insight into his characters Hollinghurst had earlier in the book seems to get a little lost. Also, for me, the total lack of female characters made The Swimming Pool Library feel more than a bit claustrophobia-inducing. However, the very best fiction leaves one with a deeper appreciation of the changes and chances of one's own life, and the lives of other people. Hollinghurst beautifully achieves this for the greater part of this book, but loses it at the very end. Unless, of course, there is a "to be continued..." that I missed.

In Alan Hollinghurst's debut novel, The Swimming-Pool Library, Will, a promiscuous, self-absorbed layabout, finds his upper-class world both shaken and stirred after he saves the life of an elderly gay aristocrat in a public lavatory. Both grateful, and believing his life story to be one worthy of a written biography, Lord Nantwich asks that Will assume authorship of his project. Refusing to make a commitment, Will agrees to research Nantwich's life through the man's diaries and many years worth of letters, and then come to a decison. As the 25-year old's friendship with the elder man develops, Will finds it difficult to concentrate much on research; he's much too busy cruising the showers at the clubby gym where he swims, partying with best (and only?) friend, James, picking up various young men (emphasis on the "young") around town and chumming around with his preternaturally mature 6-year old nephew, Rupert, a character who is not only endearing but exceedingly wise and sophisticated. Meanwhile, Will's teenage black boyfriend, Arthur, a recent refugee from the drug-related violence of public housing, has disappeared without a trace so that's one more thing occupying Will's mind, if not his time. Set in the pre-AIDS London of the early 80's, The Swimming-Pool Library vividly depicts the free-spirited camaraderie of openly gay men (particularly the relationship between Lord Nantwich and Will) while examining issues pertaining to class, racism, police entrapment and homophobia, all presented with an edgy urgency that pulls the reader further into the tale Alan Hollinghurst so skillfully weaves. There is a lot of (often explicit) sex going on in The Swimming-Pool Library but the book never feels exploitative or smutty; indeed, it is sins of the distant past that cause the novel's protagonists to question their place in the world, and to re-examine themselves and their privileged lifestyles.I first read Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty several years ago and immediately found myself admiring the quality of his writing and storytelling. I find that I enjoyed The Swimming-Pool Library at least as much, if not more. My familiarity with the world portrayed in both novels, and of the wonderful characters inhabiting this world only enhances my appreciation for his work: reading his books gives me a genuine sense of a place and time when I was, for better and for worse, a lot like the young men he writes about. I highly recommend The Swimming-Pool Library as a precursor to The Line of Beauty, both of which are among my favorite works of modern fiction.

The back cover blurb begins: ‘Young, gay William Beckwith spends his time and his trust fund idly cruising London for erotic encounters.’Well, that’s more or less it for 415 pages. There are storylines of sorts, but they fail to build and they peter out unresolved, leaving William unchanged, still idly cruising.I loved Hollinghurst’s ‘The Line of Beauty’, and understood why it beat the wonderful ‘Cloud Atlas’ to the Booker prize, so I wanted to like this (his praised debut novel) too; but gradually I became simply bored. The quality of the writing is excellent, and some of the characters (particularly the aging Lord Nantwich who asks William to be his biographer) are brilliantly drawn, but there are far too many named characters, two-dimensional apart from their genitals, and any narrative drive is lost in endless analysis of practically everything and repetitiously graphic sex scenes. I don’t object to the latter, indeed I admire Hollinghurst’s courageous explicitness, but I needed a stronger story to keep me interested.

glad to be gay ?I'm glad I read this book and I'm not even gay !NEVER have I read a book in which EVERYONE is a) male , b) homosexual and c) constantly horny THE (W)HOLE TIMEreading someone else's sexual fantasies is usually TOTALLY boringI almost never get to the end of straight eroticabut I managed to get to the end of this because between all the bonking there's an interesting story about changing attitudes ( to homosexuality , obviously ) + neat , original observations about London life + one or two rather colourful characters .Martin Amis he ain't but its totally fascinating to hear from men who have no interest at all in womenfor us , that's just weird !or to be more politically correct : far out , man !

The Swimming Pool Library was published in 1988 and Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance ten years earlier. I found plenty of similarities between the novels. Both possess a pre-lapsarian quality in that they chronicle the last innocent, hedonistic act before the curtain of AIDs slammed down. In 1978, Holleran is unknowingly prescient ('everyone is dying of cancer') whereas by 1988 Hollinghurst was only too aware of what AIDS meant to his generation of gay men ('there would never be a summer like it again'). His novel is an elegy to that way of life, and is set in 1983.Dancer's Harvard educated Anthony Malone is a lawyer who doesn't come out until he's 28. Oxford educated Will Beckwith, 24, is much more confident and has been having sex since his days at boarding school. The protagonists (and the novelists) both fetishise young working class men of colour - 'the Blacks' as Will puts it, which jars in 2021 - and the Puerto Rican boys 'with eyes like angels' for Malone.Each novel adopts poetic language to depict these last decadent days, with some sublimely beautiful writing. Here Holleran for me excels, and his portrayal of hot New York summer nights rings true to the climate. Hollinghurst attempts to do the same with a London summer, but it's not as convincing considering the average night temperature in June is 14c! Even during heatwaves the mercury rarely goes above 18c at night.Thanks to his first person narration, Will Beckwith is arguably a more fully developed character than Malone and Sutherland, although for me not as sympathetic as either one of them. Malone and Sutherland both die in Dancer, and it's very possible that gleefully promiscuous Will Beckwith will meet the same fate once AIDS hits. He ends the book in pursuit of another boy, still oblivious to the virus percolating in London.

This author takes a long time to write his novels so there are only a few of them to read. I've read two and enjoyed them both so wanted to go back and read his first, critically acclaimed, novel which was published in the 1980s.From the start I struggled to engage with the main character. He is different to me but that shouldn't matter. An author should always try to connect with any reader and, here, it seems that the author is using shock tactics to alienate the reader.There was a lot of sex but it is appropriate in the setting of the plot and the characters.The book has beautiful language but there is too much of the laborious process in the author's writing. The problem is that it is boring which is difficult to do with such a rich topic. The narrative needed more pace to keep readers interested.

Classic just as described by most critics and reviewers.It was an interesting reflection on the background of the 1980’s with its comparatively liberal freedoms in comparison to the fears and aprehension of the pre and post war eras of one of the main characters.Interesting to read in this modern era and serves as a timely reminder of just how hard times were for the protagonists and how (viewed within our contemporary experience) they accepted the very little relaxation on attitudes even during the 1980s.At times very lovely and also starkly scary reminder of past attitudes