Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst

4 reviews

chs2022's review against another edition

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reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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nkmustdie's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
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diana_dea's review against another edition

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I've been feeling conflicted about this book for a while - I really liked the writing style and some of the themes as observations that were brought up, and I thought the relationship between Will, the protagonist, and Charles, an older man whose life he saves and who then asks him to write his biography, was interesting. I really wanted to see where the plot was going and what mysteries lay in Charles' past, but the little pieces of interesting plot where just buried in so many pointless episodes of Will having sex with basically every man he sees. Seriously, I don't need to know about every character's genitals, neither do I need to know just how horny Will is like all of the time (seriously, how does he get anything done in his life? He literally says himself that he can't take the subway with getting a hard on). There was also some weird sense of fetishising Black men, but since I didn't finish the novel, I can't comment on if that is every challenged or discussed more in depth. Also, in the half of the book that I read theere was literally only one female character, and she was the protagonist's sister who appears for all of one page and doesn't add anything to the story. I get that this is a novel focusing on gay men, but that doesn't mean women don't exist? 

I finally decided to dnf the book after the main character basically said that having sex with a child is okay if he's over 14. Yikes. 

Thing is, I don't know how much of this might be a realistic portrayal of what life for a privileged gay man in that time and place would have been, which is why it took me so long to decide to stop reading it. I think there is some value in this book, but it's just not for me. 
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phlegmfatale's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense slow-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was a difficult book in a lot of ways. The narrator is a rich and privileged grandson of a Lord, and the setting is - I think early 80s? Just before the AIDS epidemic, but post-Sexual Offences Act, and close enough to pre-legalisation of gay sex for many characters to have been impacted in some way. It deals with race and class, mostly from the (sympathetic, but slightly fetishising) perspective of rich white men, which I found quite unsettling at times, but the portrayal of the layers of racism and homophobia in 1980s Britain is stark and well-crafted. This book is at times sweetly romantic and serious and sad and wistful, but at other times kind of lurid and hyper-charged and melodramatic. And there are many, many graphic descriptions of sex. I liked it - the writing is beautiful.
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