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evareading's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
earth_to_haley's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
eliemoon's review against another edition
2.0
I really don't understand all the hype.
The Swimming-Pool Library is problematic on so many levels. If at any point the story would've at least made clear to the reader that fancying underage boys and fucking them IS NOT OK, that the obvious racial, predominantly afro-fetishism IS NOT OK, well at least then it might've read well. Or perhaps not. Going to prison for PAEDOPHILIA seems to be put off rather quickly and nobody seems to get the point. Everybody was doing it apparently? So what's the matter right? No!
I understand that it is a book from the 80s depicting gay life in a time before the AIDS crisis really hit etc. etc. And I appreciate that in a way it is really rather open about gay sex, gay life in general. But to me all this book was really was tasteless. This book reads as if it tried to be both the being-gay-is-forbidden book and the one in which everyone is gay and it's no big deal at all. It makes sense that as human beings some didn't have any issues with it, but others did. What doesn't make sense though is how during the 80s these gay men seemed to just be so open about it and find "a good fuck" around every corner. Is this what London in the 80s was? With how open some of the characters showed their lust I am surprised to only have seen one violent scene in the entire novel. It seems quite unrealistic. Very idealistic. And isn't that the opposite of what this book is supposed to be? I am confused.
I also do seem to find a lot of positive reviews by straight people and quite a few queer people absolutely hating this book. Make of that what you will, but even beside all the sex (of which there was so much I might say at least three quarters of the "plot" revolved around it) there just wasn't a catching storyline. I was bored and frankly disgusted and almost put it away completely numerous times, but since I'm not the type of person to ever really DNF a book ...
The turn of events at the end of The Swimming-Pool Library was admittedly the only interesting part, but even that could not save it. I am disappointed and honestly curious why on Earth so many people seem to love this book so much. I do enjoy a good multi-faceted book with some letters in it, so I was quite interested and excited at first. Unfortunately the parts of Beckwith and Nantwitch read the same, so there wasn't much character to it either. With their age difference and so much time and history of the UK and the world between them and them obviously, logically having to lead different lives, it doesn't make sense for Beckwith to be so much like Nantwitch.
I would love to give this book at least a three-star review, especially since there seems to be something big I am missing, but I just can't. I didn't like it. It's problematic and doesn't even address it and I would never recommend it to anyone, unless of course I'd want to hate-rant with somebody else. It's a great book to hate, that's for sure!
The Swimming-Pool Library is problematic on so many levels. If at any point the story would've at least made clear to the reader that fancying underage boys and fucking them IS NOT OK, that the obvious racial, predominantly afro-fetishism IS NOT OK, well at least then it might've read well. Or perhaps not. Going to prison for PAEDOPHILIA seems to be put off rather quickly and nobody seems to get the point. Everybody was doing it apparently? So what's the matter right? No!
I understand that it is a book from the 80s depicting gay life in a time before the AIDS crisis really hit etc. etc. And I appreciate that in a way it is really rather open about gay sex, gay life in general. But to me all this book was really was tasteless. This book reads as if it tried to be both the being-gay-is-forbidden book and the one in which everyone is gay and it's no big deal at all. It makes sense that as human beings some didn't have any issues with it, but others did. What doesn't make sense though is how during the 80s these gay men seemed to just be so open about it and find "a good fuck" around every corner. Is this what London in the 80s was? With how open some of the characters showed their lust I am surprised to only have seen one violent scene in the entire novel. It seems quite unrealistic. Very idealistic. And isn't that the opposite of what this book is supposed to be? I am confused.
I also do seem to find a lot of positive reviews by straight people and quite a few queer people absolutely hating this book. Make of that what you will, but even beside all the sex (of which there was so much I might say at least three quarters of the "plot" revolved around it) there just wasn't a catching storyline. I was bored and frankly disgusted and almost put it away completely numerous times, but since I'm not the type of person to ever really DNF a book ...
The turn of events at the end of The Swimming-Pool Library was admittedly the only interesting part, but even that could not save it. I am disappointed and honestly curious why on Earth so many people seem to love this book so much. I do enjoy a good multi-faceted book with some letters in it, so I was quite interested and excited at first. Unfortunately the parts of Beckwith and Nantwitch read the same, so there wasn't much character to it either. With their age difference and so much time and history of the UK and the world between them and them obviously, logically having to lead different lives, it doesn't make sense for Beckwith to be so much like Nantwitch.
I would love to give this book at least a three-star review, especially since there seems to be something big I am missing, but I just can't. I didn't like it. It's problematic and doesn't even address it and I would never recommend it to anyone, unless of course I'd want to hate-rant with somebody else. It's a great book to hate, that's for sure!
curlyhairedbooklover's review
challenging
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
5.0
A time for sure.
bearunderthecypresses's review against another edition
3.0
Timidly, albeit with a second glass of complimentary wine, I joined a group of playgoers in the Donmar Warehouse concession lobby before the start of Racine's "Berenice." Their discussion gave this middle-aged group an impression of being articulate, well-read, and very well-cultured to my young, unexposed mind. I gleaned that they were talking about an author and comparing mental notes on his recent writings. A tall, slender man of maybe 42 was standing across from me in our circle, looking entirely intimidating in his clean, black coat and perfectly unwrinkled scarf. Here, despite the social risk presented by my American accent, I asked what other writings of this author were "must-reads." He happily rambled off several titles as I listened, trying to stay conversationally calm as my food-less train ride from Brighton was outweighed by the wine. By the time the group broke up, either for the restroom or their seats, I only remembered one book title from the man's list. I discretely walked to a recently abandoned bar table and wrote "Swimming Pool Library" in my tiny travelling notebook - a reminder for a later date. I glanced at my other notes from the past 5 months and felt accomplished. When the preshow announcements finally sounded, and I rushed to my seat alone in anticipation of seeing Stephen Campbell Moore in person for the first time.
"The point, as I saw it, was that you could take an aesthetic decision to change shape." pg. 90
"My life seemed to go in reverse, and for a month, two months, I was a thing of shadows." pg. 304
"The point, as I saw it, was that you could take an aesthetic decision to change shape." pg. 90
"My life seemed to go in reverse, and for a month, two months, I was a thing of shadows." pg. 304
itsamess's review against another edition
1.0
(⭐)
Books like that are the proof that impulsive shopping can work in a bakery, or at Primark, but when it comes to reading you should pay a little more attention.
The reason is very simple: if I buy a mediocre muffin I eat it in two bites and that's it; if I buy a scented candle and I never use it I have just wasted my money.
But I like to finish the book I read.
But this book was so painful I couldn't go on.
I have bought The Swimming Pool Library in a thrift shop for three reasons:
1) The fascinating and inexplicable title!
I mean, a swimming pool... library?
Don't books get wet?
2) The cover.
I know, "don't judge a book by its cover", but I can't resist to greek statues of male torsos. Blame my classic studies.
3) The plot on the back cover, because it promised me an ambiguous queer friendship between two aristocrats, bonding over the biography of the oldest one that the other has to write.
I was expecting something like Dorian Gray meeting The ghostwriter , but I found so many detailed description of sexual intercourse that I couldn't even follow who was having sex with whom.
Silly me, I didn't know that "the best book written about gay life" meant genitalia and locker rooms every two pages. All the other themes, like the discrimination of the black community, were completely left in the background if when the main character sees a black man he just thinks about how much he would like to have sex with him.
Same with the biography.
Such a waste of a potential great story.
Books like that are the proof that impulsive shopping can work in a bakery, or at Primark, but when it comes to reading you should pay a little more attention.
The reason is very simple: if I buy a mediocre muffin I eat it in two bites and that's it; if I buy a scented candle and I never use it I have just wasted my money.
But I like to finish the book I read.
But this book was so painful I couldn't go on.
I have bought The Swimming Pool Library in a thrift shop for three reasons:
1) The fascinating and inexplicable title!
I mean, a swimming pool... library?
Don't books get wet?
2) The cover.
I know, "don't judge a book by its cover", but I can't resist to greek statues of male torsos. Blame my classic studies.
3) The plot on the back cover, because it promised me an ambiguous queer friendship between two aristocrats, bonding over the biography of the oldest one that the other has to write.
I was expecting something like Dorian Gray meeting The ghostwriter , but I found so many detailed description of sexual intercourse that I couldn't even follow who was having sex with whom.
Silly me, I didn't know that "the best book written about gay life" meant genitalia and locker rooms every two pages. All the other themes, like the discrimination of the black community, were completely left in the background if when the main character sees a black man he just thinks about how much he would like to have sex with him.
Same with the biography.
Such a waste of a potential great story.
sglesby's review against another edition
4.0
probably one of the more brutal, insane books i’ve read in a while. The ending does an extremely tidy job of ironing out all the things that potentially bugged me about this book (spec. the narrator). The dynamics in the book between sexuality and race are... uncomfy and i am unsure whether this was because of the narrators subjectivity or the author’s own view.
This must be like what all the baby boomers felt like while they watched Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and sharon tate was on screen, but instead of murder, it’s the threat of the AIDS crisis. I was scared shitless the whole time
This must be like what all the baby boomers felt like while they watched Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and sharon tate was on screen, but instead of murder, it’s the threat of the AIDS crisis. I was scared shitless the whole time
tptrussow's review against another edition
3.0
Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool Library has its merits, that cannot be denied. Even as a debut novel, it’s easy to see why Hollinghurst ended up winning the Man Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty in 2004: his prose is eloquent, elegant, rich, witty and immensely readable, with a joie de vivre that many writers would kill to have themselves. What’s more, Hollinghurst knows how to give a singular voice to his central character, a promiscuous gay aristocrat named Will Beckwith who is in his mid-twenties, has no job prospects, and basically lives a day-to-day existence cruising around London, having sex with anyone with a penis whom he finds attractive, and working out at the Corinthian Club, a sort of elite YMCA with a homoerotic atmosphere and randy voyeurs aplenty. It’s a voice filled with charisma and panache that lights up the novel and makes you smile and laugh at several points along the way, but it’s also a deeply troubled, flawed and naïve voice that gives the work an emotional weight and virtually demands a critical distance from the goings-on. For Hollinghurst is unafraid to give us a protagonist who makes terrible decisions left and right, and like a car careening out of control, we have no choice but to watch it all happen—watch the inevitable collision, the inevitable contusion as these bad decisions snowball into all kinds of uncomfortable situations and revelations. And yet, The Swimming-Pool Library is also a camp elegy of sorts that bids farewell to the last happy summer that we all inevitably have—the last time we are free in our innocence before the waves of reality come crashing onto the stone-strewn shore.
Because of the elegiac tendencies that the novel has, it’s difficult to dismiss it as a reckless and feckless depiction of a gay idyll that may or may not have existed, even though my reservations about the book precisely stem from the fact that it doesn’t give gay living sufficient depth beyond a constant fascination (and fetishizing) of the male anatomy. Almost every character moves from one body to the next, anonymously or otherwise, and when there is no sex to be had, sex is still nevertheless on the mind. At some point one wishes a wise female would come by and tell these gay men that sex is not the be-all and end-all and that one needs to find true selfhood and the capacity to love soulfully, but alas, Hollinghurst’s world is singularly male through and through and rarely delves beyond the shallowness of skin and sweat. I don’t know why—maybe he felt a woman would spoil the fun, or maybe he believed a truly gay lifestyle precluded interactions with females. Nevertheless, what we get is a testosterone-filled vision of British camp and decadence, and when everyone is either gay or holds a lecherous gaze, you just have to move on and accept it. This is, after all, a story haunted by the spectre of AIDS and sexually-transmitted death, despite the fact that it is never explicitly mentioned. Again, the last happy summer. Perhaps, too, we must be mindful of the wicked intolerance that has plagued British homosexuality throughout the centuries, of the countless laws enacted to prohibit and punish same-sex relations. It plays a prominent role in the plot, so clearly Hollinghurst does not want us to swim in the blissful ignorance that Will and his cohorts do. These men have been, more or less, liberated from legal oppression; in this book at least, they deserve to love and seek love freely. And this is not total arcadia, for episodes of gay bashing and police entrapment do crop up in order to remind us that the early 1980s were still rife with homophobia and bigotry. As much as Will is able to flirt and fool around, he is still doing it in a less-than-ideal state, and Hollinghurst knows this very well.
So even though The Swimming-Pool Library gives us a glimpse into a world where having a good time belied practical considerations—a world which, in this day and age, can no longer exist—I have to tip my hat to Hollinghurst all the same for his gutsiness at writing this tale at a time when the AIDS epidemic fostered even more misunderstanding and homophobia than usual. A book like this could have easily been fuel to a hateful fire, yet he wrote it anyway. He wanted to mark and celebrate that last happy summer, and not only that—he wanted to open the British literary canon to the queer tradition that was elided over the centuries. As I read the book, I noticed how mindful Hollinghurst was of alluding to his antecedents: to the shadowy mysteries of the Gothic, to the passions of the Romanticists, to the candour of satirists like Pope and Fielding, to the morality of the Victorian realists, and to the flamboyance of the decadent writers, including Ronald Firbank (who plays an important role in the text). The swimming-pool library, then, is not just a place for gay passions to coalesce—it’s also a place where queer writing has finally found a home amongst the masters that we have celebrated for so long. And that is where its central beauty lies, for even though it is plagued with many of the problems found in most debut novels, it is still something of an achievement in its own right.
Because of the elegiac tendencies that the novel has, it’s difficult to dismiss it as a reckless and feckless depiction of a gay idyll that may or may not have existed, even though my reservations about the book precisely stem from the fact that it doesn’t give gay living sufficient depth beyond a constant fascination (and fetishizing) of the male anatomy. Almost every character moves from one body to the next, anonymously or otherwise, and when there is no sex to be had, sex is still nevertheless on the mind. At some point one wishes a wise female would come by and tell these gay men that sex is not the be-all and end-all and that one needs to find true selfhood and the capacity to love soulfully, but alas, Hollinghurst’s world is singularly male through and through and rarely delves beyond the shallowness of skin and sweat. I don’t know why—maybe he felt a woman would spoil the fun, or maybe he believed a truly gay lifestyle precluded interactions with females. Nevertheless, what we get is a testosterone-filled vision of British camp and decadence, and when everyone is either gay or holds a lecherous gaze, you just have to move on and accept it. This is, after all, a story haunted by the spectre of AIDS and sexually-transmitted death, despite the fact that it is never explicitly mentioned. Again, the last happy summer. Perhaps, too, we must be mindful of the wicked intolerance that has plagued British homosexuality throughout the centuries, of the countless laws enacted to prohibit and punish same-sex relations. It plays a prominent role in the plot, so clearly Hollinghurst does not want us to swim in the blissful ignorance that Will and his cohorts do. These men have been, more or less, liberated from legal oppression; in this book at least, they deserve to love and seek love freely. And this is not total arcadia, for episodes of gay bashing and police entrapment do crop up in order to remind us that the early 1980s were still rife with homophobia and bigotry. As much as Will is able to flirt and fool around, he is still doing it in a less-than-ideal state, and Hollinghurst knows this very well.
So even though The Swimming-Pool Library gives us a glimpse into a world where having a good time belied practical considerations—a world which, in this day and age, can no longer exist—I have to tip my hat to Hollinghurst all the same for his gutsiness at writing this tale at a time when the AIDS epidemic fostered even more misunderstanding and homophobia than usual. A book like this could have easily been fuel to a hateful fire, yet he wrote it anyway. He wanted to mark and celebrate that last happy summer, and not only that—he wanted to open the British literary canon to the queer tradition that was elided over the centuries. As I read the book, I noticed how mindful Hollinghurst was of alluding to his antecedents: to the shadowy mysteries of the Gothic, to the passions of the Romanticists, to the candour of satirists like Pope and Fielding, to the morality of the Victorian realists, and to the flamboyance of the decadent writers, including Ronald Firbank (who plays an important role in the text). The swimming-pool library, then, is not just a place for gay passions to coalesce—it’s also a place where queer writing has finally found a home amongst the masters that we have celebrated for so long. And that is where its central beauty lies, for even though it is plagued with many of the problems found in most debut novels, it is still something of an achievement in its own right.
wietsreads's review against another edition
4.0
This novel has so many layers and is so cleverly written. Its refreshing and the narrative is insightful and eye opening.
nelsonminar's review against another edition
4.0
I wish I had someone to talk to about this book! I loved it. Somehow I missed it in my gay culture reading when I was coming out. Glad I read it now, with some distance from it.
So much joy in reading the author's quite enthusiastic gay life. It's a little strange, the book describes a fantasy world of London upper crust where everyone is gay. Everyone at the club, at the restaurant, at the hotel, all gay. And so much enthusiastic casual sex. And friendships, and loves, and complicated human relationships. It's a sort of wonderful fantasy land. This book is usually pigeonholed as a "pre-AIDS book" and while that's certainly true it still seems like an aspirational fantasy of what gay life could be if we lived in a world of full acceptance and as a majority culture.
So I was a bit surprised towards the end when the book takes a turn to the more serious, to addressing police harassment and entrapment of gay men. There's a lovely surprise turn in the book about all this which I won't spoil, but I will say it landed hard and it landed well.
I also like the dissolute writing, the ragged edges and uneven prose and unfinished bits of story. It reads like an authentic memoir of someone's lived life, not a tidy novel with all the loose ends tied off.
Remarkable novel. I need to read more like this, to really center myself in this particular kind of gay male culture.
So much joy in reading the author's quite enthusiastic gay life. It's a little strange, the book describes a fantasy world of London upper crust where everyone is gay. Everyone at the club, at the restaurant, at the hotel, all gay. And so much enthusiastic casual sex. And friendships, and loves, and complicated human relationships. It's a sort of wonderful fantasy land. This book is usually pigeonholed as a "pre-AIDS book" and while that's certainly true it still seems like an aspirational fantasy of what gay life could be if we lived in a world of full acceptance and as a majority culture.
So I was a bit surprised towards the end when the book takes a turn to the more serious, to addressing police harassment and entrapment of gay men. There's a lovely surprise turn in the book about all this which I won't spoil, but I will say it landed hard and it landed well.
I also like the dissolute writing, the ragged edges and uneven prose and unfinished bits of story. It reads like an authentic memoir of someone's lived life, not a tidy novel with all the loose ends tied off.
Remarkable novel. I need to read more like this, to really center myself in this particular kind of gay male culture.