The Swimming-Pool Library

Set in London in 1983, The Swimming-Pool Library centres the promiscuous lifestyle of homosexual Will Beckwith, an aristocratic young man, who spends his days idling and picking up other gay men. When, one day,he saves the life of Charles Nantwich, an octogenarian peer, a friendship develops. When he was much younger Lord Nantwich served in the foreign service in Africa and he gives Will his old diaries in the hope that he will write his biography.

As Will reads through the diaries we discover that, despite the 60 year age difference, there are many parallels between the lives of the two men. Both come from privileged backgrounds, led self-indulgent lifestyles spent pursuing young men for casual sex with both showing a preference for show more black men. However, whilst Nantwich was forced to conceal his sexual preferences Will lives in a society that not only tolerates homosexuality but also one that must conceal any prejudices it may still retain.

The similarity of the two characters’ youth can certainly be read as a comment on the ruling class where a colonial sense of entitlement especially towards ethnic minorities, even if inadvertent, means that changes to habits and attitudes are slow to materialise.

Extracts from Lord Nantwich’s diary, with its depictions of repressed homosexuality, breaks up the main narrative which is liberally peppered with graphic sex scenes. Yet a sense of loneliness pervades the book, many of the characters live solitary existences, interspersed by wild, but ultimately meaningless sexual encounters.

There is undoubtedly a certain elegance to the prose but overall the plot felt meandering and aimless. Will seems incapable of questioning let alone altering his lifestyle no matter what befalls him. In truth, the novel felt over-sexed to the point of tedium and the sexual interludes seem to serve no purpose other than to show the increasingly liberal attitudes of both the reading public and society in general has become. Although admittedly this may be because today we are armed with the knowledge of the AIDS epidemic that occurred only a few years after this book was set. The book is populated almost exclusively by promiscuous homosexual men meaning that overall this felt like a celebration of a gay sub-culture, but little more. On more than one occasion I was tempted to throw in the towel and give up but persevered in the hope that it would come to some conclusion only to be ultimately left sadly disappointed. show less

In his incredible first novel, Booker Prize-winner Alan Holinghurst explores the revelatory days of the early 1980s in England, when anti-gay sentiment was beginning its decline and AIDS had yet to cross the pond. His narrator, Will Beckwith, is young, beautiful, rich, titled, indolent and hedonistic. Will’s arch voice describes days of almost impossible indulgence. He leaves his luxurious flat only to pursue other beautiful young men across the city, on buses and in parks and at the swimming pool of The Corry, his beloved local fitness club. When he saves the life of the elderly Lord Charles Nantwich, he falls into the older man’s inner circle and slowly uncovers his incredible past, and the unexpected parallels between their show more histories, through decades-old diaries and whispers.

I don’t know how it is possible to write about so much sex, in such length and detail, as Hollinghurst does, without ever making it feel gratuitous or prurient to the reader. It helps that he is a truly brilliant stylist: his sentences are gorgeous right down to the structural level, not only inviting you to linger on each one, but insisting on such a close reading. More to the point, while the novel is unabashedly sexual, sex is not so much the subject as the medium: Hollinghurst uses each encounter to further an almost anthropological exploration of the gay subtext of English culture and empire in the 20th century. For a book that could be mistaken for smut, it’s a grandly ambitious project and a breathtaking success. show less

When you know nothing about a book but pick it up because it has the word "library in the title...

(Ok, so I'm slowly working my way through the 1001 books to read before you die and I would have gotten around to it sooner or later, but still...)

Very well written. But ultimately not at all my cup of tea.

I really wanted to like this book. It's about a hypersexualized handsome haughty Brit who prances about London's upper crust hunting for young prey in the Clubs and gymnasiums and public parks. The writing's honest about the depravities, the elitism, the frivolousness of his life -- and, above all, the gay sex. And that was what I loved about this book: It is an honestly-told awful life, and so much fun to read. As social criticism, it was superb. But there came a point in the book when the main plotline started to loom larger and larger on the horizon, and the old man's diary started to be excerpted in larger and larger word-counts, and the midnight instinct to fall asleep rather than vigorously read starts to weigh larger and larger show more on the eyelids, when I decided to call it quits. This book is hereby abandoned, but not because it was awful inasmuch as it was starting to go a different direction than I wanted it to, and I have better things to read. show less

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.

Beautifully written, with lots of threads that seem just about to come satisfyingly together when the book ends. Well that's not fair, they do come together, but it is still left hanging a bit. Lots of sex, made me blush to read it on the tube.

St. Barts 2019 #3 - This was a very unexpected read...grabbed it randomly off my shelf for vacation. It was unexpectedly graphic early on, and i thought i might be in for a bit of a sleazy novel of sorts....but then it started going in different directions....and while it remained unexpectedly sexually explicit, it also did a lot more. It was rather 2 stories in one....a current story and one from a few generations back.....the struggle for societal acceptance of gay behavior...both from the 1920'-50's.....and again in the present of the story, the 1980's.....all of this told from the point of view of a rather spoiled rich kid with titled forebears living a carefree and reckless London life of fun and promiscuous frolic, not having to show more work, who spends time almost daily at his local club with gym, swimming pool, and of course, the showers.....and he is enticed to consider writing the biography of an older, fading gentleman of similar ilk from 2 generations prior he met there.....creating a remarkable revelatory adventure of learning about himself, his family's past, and where he might be heading, all the while piecing together the earlier life of his subject. Interesting, occasionally unexpected, thoughtful, and again, explicit..... but in a seemingly very honest way rather than the gratuitousness i thought i was in for. An insightful story that chronicles the earlier struggles for acceptance that are now oft forgotten and taken for granted. Did not expect to like it when i began, and it ended up with 4 stars, which surprises even me. show less