has been highly praised as being one of the best British books about gay life,
Not knowing a hell of a lot about gay life or the gay community in Britain or anywhere else or British fiction, I feel this is something I can't really comment on.
But as someone outside of this community and I feel it's safe to say that type of life I don't have that much sex or that much money and I'm not as sociable, it was a great look into what goes on in a world I don't frequent how things work and the different dynamics.
There was a great contrast between the main character, Will, and his best friend, James, Both showed some of the freedoms and limitations of being gay and being open about it, In many respects gay life is pretty much the same as the lives of everyone else oh gosh, who knew.
They have the same worries, the same desires, the same dreams, But there's also an extra layer of worry and apprehension, a layer that the different characters use different means to break through.
And this is the thing I perhaps had the most questions about, because I say this with the fear
of sounding ridiculous how do you know, as a gay person, if someone else is also gay It makes sense how it happens in places that are mostly occupied by gay people.
But I mean, Will keeps picking up guys in random places, and how did he know they wanted what he wanted and that he wouldn't get rejected or even ridiculed It took a while for this to get addressed in the book, and it was driving me crazy, but in the end you sort of understand it, not because it is clearly stated, but because you get to watch Will handle it.
I liked that, in the end it gave a much better understanding,
So why onlyFirst of all, there isn't actually a swimming pool library in this book the title being the reason I picked it up in the first place.
Had there been, this probably would have automatically beenstars,
Secondly, I couldn't quite relate to Will, We're very different in character and personality, and that also lessens my enjoyment of a book, He rarely did things I downright disagreed with, but I didn't feel strongly connected to him either, I guess there were things I didn't understand and didn't share with him,
The one thing that put me off the most though, is how Will was just 'suddenly' in love with Phil.
Seriously I don't get it, I never, not once, got the impression that he was in love with him, or that Phil loved him back.
Not once. And that's just not good, because it makes part of the book unbelievable and unrealistic, The same goes for Will's relationship with Arthur, That is a messed up kind of love, sorry to say, And I have no doubt Alan Hollinghurst tried to make this story something real, something that depicted real life and it was just slightly ruined by how I simply didn't believe Will had ever loved anyone other than James.
Maybe he hasn't, maybe that was the point, but it still fell very flat to me, There were a few scenes similar to that of sitelinkCall Me by Your Name, but while it was believable and heartwrenching and stunning in that book, it was devoid of any real attachment in this one.
Both by me, as a reader, but also by the characters in the book,
Other than that, it was a fairly enjoyable read, and it definitely expanded and broadened my view on some things, but I doubt I'll pick it up again, even if I might benefit from it, as I suspect there were a few things that went over my heard perhaps because I simply lack the knowledge to properly comprehend them.
That's for another time. Given the number of sex scenes that Alan Hollinghurst crams into his books approximately one every other page you'd think it would be more enjoyable for him as well as the reader to inject a bit of variation.
In fact they all follow broadly the same template: lingering description of a younger man's abs/chest/arse comparative analysis of cock size and appearance followed by a rough penetration in which the narcissistic central character is invariably in the "active" role.
Sometimes if he's feeling particularly expansive he'll throw in a rimming, As a result, the experience of reading The Swimming Pool Library is a bit like flicking through somebody else's Grindr account vicariously interesting for about five minutes, quickly becoming repetitive and not a little depressing.
In contrast to the excellent Line of Beauty, which takes place at the height of the AIDS epidemic, The Swimming Pool Library is set in the earlys at which time it was apparently still possible to have daily unprotected sex with strangers with no adverse physical health effects other than the occasional beating by rightwing skinheads.
Not as fun as it sounds if this book is anything to go by,
In fairness to the author, the A Biblioteca da Piscina's title strongly suggests that this is supposed to be a not entirely flattering portrayal of the superficiality of a certain type of urban, physical beautyobsessed gay scene.
So the joyless repetitiveness and preening selfabsorption is clearly deliberate and intended to make a point, Fair enough. But for this reader at least the point had been well made by about themark, after which the book really needed to go in some new directions.
Byit still hadn't, at which stage I couldn't summon sufficient interest in the characters to read any further,
I totally loved this book and I wish I could write prose as Hollinghurst, His turn of phrase and excellent use of language is stellar,
The story is interestingly told through the eyes of a thirtyish gay man in the prime of his life simply lounging, working out, and having sexual encounters of the various kind.
The plot dupes you into regarding the plot as nonexistent and that the book will tell the typical tale of a lounger, but the author starts dropping hints to an underlying secret.
I love William's gutsy sexual encounters even more thrilling than the sex for William seems to be the unknown and the possibility of the situation deteriorating.
I have never been up for "cruising" or even chatting up strangers amp find the descriptions fascinating, The art of catching signals and wayward glances seems to have been eradicated as the gay rights movement has brought gay sexuality front and center.
I assume, also, that the internet has made such casual encounters enter the digital arena vs, the public bathrooms of old, Certain Idaho congressfolks like to stand by traditions, however, and long for an age of old, this is said to be hollinghurst's first novel, completed at about the age of
it is clear he pays homage to or how I say "namedropping" his inspirations of Firbank and E.
M. Forster throughout, his major interest while studying English in school
in an elevator summary, TSPL opens with the protagonist, Will Beckwith, coming to the aid of an elder gay man, who in turn is a lord with a complex link to his family.
. . Lord Nantwich asks Will to write his personal memoir, and slowly more a more of the characters are reveled by the readings of Lord N.
's diaries which read as a compliation of short stories within the larger story
the most memorable part, aside from the plentiful and unbelievably capricious sexual excursions, is in fact the precise way hollinghurst even discredits the sexual theme his own novel parallels by citing a book our main character picks up near the end
refering to this book that Will's "librarian" friend at the club where he swims "Nigel.
. . had said it was a good one but I resented its professional neatness and its priapic attempts to win me over.
The trouble was that, as attempts, they were halfsuccessful: something in me was pained and removed but something else, subliterate, responded to the A Biblioteca da Piscina's bald graffiti"
to me, this sealed the deal on such an eloquent way an otherwise, seemingly trashy novel becomes a timeless work and in itself, I believe, is something that will be linked to by future novelists
I will come back to this again, as I'm sure I will pick up more of the subtle ironies I missed this first time around
This book was brilliantly written.
I loved the snarky, literary writing style, I wasn't attached to any of the characters but the story itself held my attention very closely, Hollinghurst covers a plethora of themes such as homophobia, while comparing homosexuality before and after the gay liberation movement, Will, the main character, is filthy rich and a hopeless whore, He's extremely attractive and doesn't have to work, A big part of this book covers a diary that Will is reading and those events are juxtaposed with events that are happening to Will and his friends.
The title the swimming pool library refers to the changing room i, e. a place where Will and his friends would have unauthorized sex, Fascinating the way Hollinghurst put this book together and well worth the read for it's story and themes but also for Hollinghurst's rich, exhaustive writing style.
You never stop learning a language, which is why I buy two unabridged English novels from Audible every month and listen to them with as much concentration as I can muster.
Style is very important. I don't like to listen to bad style, So I choose very carefully what I listen to, Those books become like voices in my head, I absorb every cadence. I internalise, verbalise and repeat,
Finally I have found time for Alan Hollinghurst, He's been on my list for a long time because everybody in the literary establishment says what a fine style he has.
I agree. He has a very fine English style, He also has a delicate sensibility, He has a beautiful sense of irony, He is mischievous, cheeky and arch, while at the same time having a coy vulnerability,
Let's listen in on the secret thoughts of his narrator, William Beckwith, as he goes back to the hotel of his latest pickup, an athletic young boy called Phil:
I was so lucky in general, so blessed, that my pickups were virtually instantaneous: the man I fancied took in my body, my cock, my blue eyes at a glance.
Misunderstandings were almost unknown. Any uncertainty in a boy I wanted was usually overcome by the simple insistence of my look, But with Phil I had let something dangerous happen, a roundabout, slow insinuation into my feelings, Though I very much wanted to fuck his big, muscly bum and several times dropped behind a step or two to see it working as he walked my stronger feeling was more protective and caressing.
It was growing so strong that it allowed doubts not entertained in the brief certainties of casual sex, If I had got it all wrong, if going back to his place meant a drink in the bar, a game of chess, a handshake 'I've got an early start tomorrow' the evening would be agony.
Already I dreamt up headaches, queazy tums, excuses for dullness and an early escape and I was so tense that as I did so I even began to feel the symptoms.
I wish I could quote more but already there is a lot going on, Hollinghurst takes a cliché of romantic fiction and gives it several ironic twists, The cliché in this case is that of the serial philanderer who meets our heroine and is reformed by love.
Here the philanderer is a gay man, This is a beautiful twist, But he is also the narrator, which is another twist, We are asked to identify with the philanderer, To make it even more piquant, the philanderer is an aristocratic English gentleman who has been brought up in the finest English traditions the traditions of queazy tums and other feeble excuses.
Hollinghurst's ironies are best enjoyed in longer passages than this, But his ironies would be empty without the delicious observational details
I very much wanted to fuck his big, muscly bum and several times dropped behind a step or two to see it working as he walked
which make listening or reading to him such a joy.
Excellent English style is not just about vocabulary, word order and syntax, It is about something that is very hard to teach, It is something that perhaps you are born with, I don't know, or that you have to absorb and acquire in the nursery.
It's about sensibility.
I'm hoping that having this voice in my head will help me acquire a refined English sensibility,
My only worry is that this particularly wicked, arch and mischievous voice will corrupt me and have me thinking about cocks and bums far more than is good for me.
Rich spoilt gay men fk everything that moves, live a life of excess and have no redeeming features,
Well written but quite boring! I've much preferred everything else I've read by Hollinghurst, I need to stop doing this thing of, when I'm completely taken with a novel by a writer I've never read before, running out and instantly reading something else by that writer.
It's just too much pressure, and I always wind up all pissedoff and disappointed, This has recently happened with Patrick Hamilton, Martin Amis, and now, Alan Hollinghurst is there something about these Brits that they dont make good second dates When I read The Line of Beauty I loved it so much I was sick.
Naturally I ran out that week and bought The SwimmingPool Library, but I think I wanted too much, and was keyed up too high.
maybe it's too much to ask an author's first novel to deliver in the face of those expectations,
All this is not to suggest that The SwimmingPool Library is not gorgeously written or at all without merit.
There were a lot of good things about this book, and his descriptions of the club where he swims were so lovely and evocative that I actually looked into joining the Y, thinking that getting into lap swimming might be the secret to surviving a miserable winter.
I'd probably not follow his example to the point of staring hungrily at other gym members' genitals in the shower, but who knows.
. . Anyway, I didn't wind up joining the YMCA, and I've also decided, on page, to bail on this book,
To be fair, I've been extraordinarily cranky and picky lately, and nothing I read has satisfied me at all.
The issue I had here was with the odious narrator, It's not like I need to become besties with whoever is telling the story, but writing a novel about an unlikeable person is tough, and for me, in this case, it just didn't work.
The book is about a rich, lazy, snob who doesn't have to go to work or do anything, who just sort of shambles aimlessly around London reading books, working out, and fucking everything that moves.
Since this is more or less how Id like to live my own life, but cant, I resented the character, who also seemed like a spoiled egomaniac without redeeming qualities.
I wasn't interested in his thoughts or what happened to him, which is usually a deal breaker for loving a novel.
Maybe if I'd stuck with this longer, I would've developed feelings beyond bored irritation, Hollinghurst certainly is a fantastic writer, but for me he was not fantastic enough into overcome my desire to smack his main character in the side of the head.
I spend enough time already dealing with dull, entitled people who bore me, and I'm not sure why I should subject myself to them in fiction.
I suspect that Hollinghurst was aware of potential for this response from readers, as in The Line of Beauty the main character is a striver who doesnt really belong in the elite world that he describes.
Must class resentment interfere with readers enjoyment of fiction No, of course not: a lot of my favorite books are about idle rich people.
It does require extra authorial skills to effect that empathy, though, and for me, with this book, it just didnt happen.
Also, it wasnt just that hes rich, its that I really dont like him,
Again, this book isnt bad by any stretch of the imagination, However, Im not enjoying it, so Im putting it down, .