Reviews

The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst

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andrew61's review

4.0

William Beckwith is the grandson of a peer living in a London flat purchased for him by his grandfather but uncertain of his role in life until one day he intervenes to provide cpr to an elderly man who collapses in front of him. When he then meets the same man, Lord Nantwich, in the sports club where he exercises he strikes up a relationship with him and finds himself becoming his potential biographer with access to diaries and an archive which tells of an interesting life lived in post ww1 private school, university and then in Egypt , with the journals documenting Nantwich's sexual preferences and experiences. These mirror Will's own desires and we follow , sometimes graphically, Will's own sexual encounters.
Written in 1988 the portrayal of gay sexuality feels to me ahead of it's time as it expresses voyeuristically the beauty of the male form and how the body stimulates those attracted by those images and snatched glimpses in the sport club's showers. This is also emphasised by observations about art such a St Sebastian portrayed photographically with handsome young men as well as pornography both historic and in a dramatis scene created before Will's very eyes. Certainly the sexual imagery is graphic and may not be for every reader however I felt that this would create an interesting discussion about how sex is treated in literature and whether attitudes to the treatment of the male gaze differ subject to sexuality and the reader who observes the image.
It also still seems unimaginable that an individuals sexuality pre 1968 was subject to state criminalisation and in a final third the author references such events and their impact on Nantwich as well as Will also experiencing a violent homophobic attack in a shocking scene.
Some aspects felt dated particularly around race both in Nantwich's colonial attitudes and Will's obsessive preoccupation with physical form, and having read and enjoyed some of the author's later books he does seem to like a lost and tormented rich posh boy.
Overall this is a book that I was glad read as Alan Hollinghurst is a master of style with the creation of brilliantly crafted characters. His world, on the page, is one I enjoy whenever I pick up his books. Definitely an interesting and thought provoking writer.

thegayngelgabriel's review against another edition

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3.0

I don't know how to rate this. Until about fifty pages from the end, I sort of had a cohesive idea of it; it frustrated me somewhat and occasionally bored me, but I felt like I could talk about it: the writing, the sort of intergenerational fetishization of black men, the way that I kind of wish any other character in this were the protagonist...
Now I'm much more aggravated but also much more interested in it. It's beautiful and totally unresolved in the kind of way that reminds me somewhat of My Fair Lady.

jadesx96's review against another edition

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4.0

I think this novel is self-conscious and critical of the fetishisation of minorities and the working class boy by the leisure class.

kingfan30's review

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3.0

Described as a darkly erotic tale this was a book I hoped my boss wasn’t going to ask me about as she sometimes does! It started out ok although I was struggled to place when this book was based. I read somewhere it was during the eighties but felt like it belonged to an earlier era at times. The guys in this book certainly put it about and at times the descriptions had me hoping no one was reading over my shoulder. At about two thirds I started to loose a bit of interest, I think it was when the diary entries were introduced. And also it felt like it was getting quite repetitive, go to the club, ogle men in the shower, pick one up take them home.