Reading 1001 discussion

I spent quite a while during my reading of this novel wondering what is so great about it that it would turn up on so many recommended book lists, including the 1001 Books list. Granted, this book was published in the lat 1980's, so society was even less accepting of homosexual men then. Well, in fact now many annual reading challenges include items like 'read a book by a LGBTQ author or with a LGBTQ main character', and there are a LOT of mainstream novels published with homosexual characters and stories. In 1988 I suppose there were fewer. So, this book would stand out as 'daring' for depicting SO MUCH homosexual sex 'on screen', as well as for being almost entirely about gay men, with almost no heterosexual or female characters.
So, great, this book was different.
The main character, William, is a constantly horny young man who somehow or another seems to have sex with just about every man he meets as he wanders through this novel, though he gets self-righteously angry when his boyfriend hooks up with someone else. In this book William finds new lovers around every corner, and they are all willing and interested. The only men he doesn't sample as lovers, it seems, are old, or vicious skinheads intent on beating him up. If all men have sex drives this obsessive, it is hard to imagine how they get anything else done. One can imagine, however, the extent to which AIDS would have spread within the London male homosexual population if they all carried on like William. I won't say it's unrealistic, because I'm sure some real people are a lot like William. But he was an annoying main character, and since the novel is in first person narrated by William, we get to spend the whole novel following him from one liaison to the next, with each sex act described in some detail. Tedious, really.
There is a less pornographic point to this book, as William explores the life of a much older homosexual man named Charles. William saves Charles's life at the beginning of the book, so Charles takes an interest in William and offers him a job, writing Charles's biography. William takes home a bunch of journals and parts of the novel are excerpts of these journals by Charles, showing his own homosexual encounters and his life in Africa and elsewhere as a homosexual man. So, I suppose this book shows a continuity of experience that links all gay men through their shared experiences of isolation and abuse, though actually there was little isolation and only a few incidents of abuse/violence in this book. One might assume more bad things happen to the characters off-screen, but since most of the book is about the characters pairing up for sex in various combinations, little time is actually spent on anything else.
Oh, and William, after going through a story arc that might make the reader expect him to 'grow' and maybe not be quite so quick to chase every new ass he sees, he doesn't change at all, really. He's the same shallow, ever horny young man on the first page as he is at the end of the book as far as I could see.
I'd like to just dismiss this book as annoying because I had to wade through so much homosexual pornography that I really just could not ever relate to the characters, or something like that. In some circles that's in fact probably my short review of this one. If you are a man who is curious about gay sex and would like to read some sexy scenes to learn more about how it is done, you might like this book. If you are a woman who likes reading descriptions of every male character's ass and penis, you might like this book. And, if you like reading books about life as a homosexual man in the past, you may like parts of this book. But as a novel I found this book unbalanced and frustrating, with flat, irritating characters and not enough focus on issues and events within the story besides pornographic sex scenes.
I would not have included this book on a 1001 Books list, and I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

I loathed this book.

(The 1001 entry is all plot summary, so the quote below is the closest statement for why this novel is included on the list.)

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "By turns enraptured with the present and nostalgic for the past, the novel revels in the company of men and ubiquitous gay sex, while conducting the reader to a finely pitched denouement."

This is surprisingly well-written for a debut novel. The story is primarily told through William Beckwith, a wealthy 20-something frittering away his life in 1980s London. His wealth and privilege allow him to exist fully in a homosexual world -- there is not a single female in the entire novel and the only heterosexual males are brief appearances by a brother-in-law and a grandfather.

William, having given up work, devotes his time to enjoying life and the many men he encounters. His world is slightly disturbed one day when he saves the life of an elderly gay man that collapsed in a bathroom and then meets again in his club. The elderly man, Lord Nantwich, entreats William to consider writing his biography until William reluctantly agrees to peruse Nantwich's diaries. Nantwich's diaries provide the secondary narration.

The rest of the novel alters between William's present-day adventures with a new boyfriend (and many previous liaisons) and random excepts the William reads in the diaries about Nantwich's life as an administrator in Sudan and London during WWII. And, of course, the seemingly parallel story-lines, with their similar incidents playing out both the same and yet with telling variations in the the different eras, become intertwined as Nantwich's past approaches the present.

Given my lack of interest in the surface plot-lines, Hollinghurst was able to keep me remarkably engaged throughout.

In contrast to most of the reviews here I really loved this book? I gave it 5 stars. I could see how it could be off-putting to a lot of people in that it is very graphically sexual- often in really lurid and uncomfortable ways (like the way Will fetishizes black men). But, I feel like these aspects were intentional and help convey how societal homophobia drives a culture of shame and shadows that allows the more lurid aspects of desire to thrive, and make a great point about intersectionality- particularly about racism in the gay community. It also highlights the superficial nature of Will’s life, and how devoid of deep meaning and connection it is.

The title is clever and layered: Will had the title of the “swimming pool librarian” in his school (not going to lie, I find British school conventions really funny) due to being the head boy of aquatics essentially, but his dad asks him “what kind of books do you borrow at a swimming pool library?” But, in the book, homoerotic novels are exchanged at the Corinthian club pool, Nantwich has a library that used to be a Roman bath, and Will gets his education in sex from the school pool’s change room. There are many “swimming pool libraries” throughout that have a common thread: they are places where Will receives an education in what it means to be gay (how to act, how to love, the in-culture of the community, and the history of LGBTQ+ people and their struggles). And, this is a predominant theme of the novel: in a society and culture where homosexuality is taboo, how do gay people learn about themselves and their history? I thought this was great. The other major aspect is what is to be learned from this education…

…Which brings me to Charles Nantwich and what his history suggests. Will learns about how his grandfather- as a politician of the British Empire in Africa earlier in life- destroys Nantwich’s life for being caught cottaging. All of Will’s life of privilege and leisure (made possible due to inherited wealth from his grandfather) is built on a foundation of imperialist racism and homophobia. Not only does he learn about the history of oppression here: but it also serves a deeper thematic purpose. It shows how someone like Will: white, wealthy, British, cis, not especially fem and largely straight passing, even while experiencing some degree of homophobia and oppression in his life, is in many ways a direct beneficiary of Imperialist oppression. In a wider view, this is generally true to real life, where middle and upper class, cis, white, gender conforming gay men still benefit from a racist, patriarchal, classist society. It shines a light on the intersectional issues in the gay community, and demonstrates how even within a marginalized group- those with the least marginalized identities are most likely to receive tangible benefits from the society that marginalizes them and also have the most power within their marginalized in-group.


I also loved how in the theme of illuminating queer history, real life figures appear like the homage to Cecil Beaton, them watching the opera Billy Budd (a homoerotic sailor story originally by E.M Forster and a score by a gay composer), and the Ronald Firbank movie at the end. This also allows the theme of “gay art and the works of gay artists as history” to be explored. I can only imagine how back in the day, young boys and men reading subtextual works like Billy Budd may have been the first and only places they had the ability to see themselves reflected.

I disagree with the assessment that nothing is learned by Will and nothing is gained by the end. I think the fact that him and others go to their theatre at the end not to watch porn as they did before, but to watch old-age recollections of the novelist Richard Firbank reflects this message of the value of queer people knowing their own history and having an interior life beyond the party and hookup circuit.

Since the book has an early 80s pre-AIDS setting I think the idea of preserving the history and culture of the gay community is made so poignant, especially since so many of this generation didn’t survive, leaving the next with very few living elders to look to.

So yeah, this book was super horny and kind of gross, but I thought it was also beautiful and smart and poignant.

I am so not the target audience for this book so my views can be taken with a pinch of salt but honestly ugh.

Hollinghurst can definitely write and there are points where the narrative is so beautifully written it could be heart breaking if only it didn’t then degenerate into boring beyond measure descriptions of beautiful men with beautiful…cock, arse, abs etc or yet another sex scene where the narrator takes someone roughly in terms that nowadays would sound vaguely raperish. Added to that is the fact that every man Will sees seems to inspire sexual fantasising it is a wonder he ever manages to get anything done.

To illustrate my point let’s start with the beautiful:

“My life was in a strange way that summer, the last summer of its kind there was ever to be.”

“Though I didn’t believe in such things, I was a perfect Gemini, a child of the ambiguous early summer, tugged between two versions of myself, one of them the hedonist and the other – a little in the background these days – an almost scholarly figure with a faintly puritanical set to the mouth”

“I was enthralled almost breathless, at the very idea of men, the mythological beauty of them running under trees and sunlight in the Avenue or in the long perspectives of Kensington Gardens.”

Followed by this…

“His sleek heavy cock, cushioned on a tight, crinkled scrotum”

“a firm hairless ass”

“I tugged my half-hard cock out through my fly and stroked it casually”

“the barely perceptible swing of cocks and balls in shorts and track suits”

“I looked at Strong, and at his red, thick prick”

And on it goes…

The best parts of the book are any scenes featuring Will’s 6 year old nephew Rupert who is an absolute breath of fresh air and provides some comic relief from the otherwise essentially dull narrative.

This book is 352 pages and if you took out the repetitive and boring sexual descriptions you are left with about 100 pages of interesting story such as the true connection between Will & Nantwich, the development of friendships and how while the more things have changed between Nantwich’s past and the present the more they have stayed the same.

3 Stars - Not my cup of tea but it has plenty of fans you never know you could end up being one of them.

It is very difficult for me to review this book. There were times when I felt as if I was an anthropologist reading about the strange patterns of behavior in a truly foreign culture. There were times when Alan Hollinghurst's easy flow of descriptive language was just so impressive. I have to admit I have never once daydreamed of naked men running through Kensington Garden but he made that daydream sound quite marvelous. However, clearly I was not the correct audience for much of the very specific descriptions of male anatomy. I felt that he really loved all his characters and treated most of them with great dignity and delight. I appreciated the fact that the Main Character, Will Beckwith, had no fear or shame about what he was doing in the beginning, even if I could not understand why his boyfriends were not allowed that same freedom to f*** anyone. Will learns fear from the skinheads and he learns shame only when he is embarrassed by the acts of his dearly loved grandfather.
I found the juxtaposition of Will's rather senseless and wasteful life compared to Charles' life of service to the empire and loyalty and dedication to one man in which his love was not completely driven by sexual lust, very interesting.
The British class system was alive and well in the book and as always, left me feeling slightly disgruntled.
Clearly, Hollinghurst's investigations of themes of fearlessness and fearfulness, class systems, subcultural tropes, is unique and accomplished. I found the ending to not be up to the rest of the book even though I did think that he crafted the slow reveal of Charles' relationship to Will's family very well.

read June (Pride month!!) 2025

What a tour de force. Hollinghurst packed a lot into this novel – longing, nostalgia, racism, innocence (of youth), colonialism, and the impact and remembrance of cultural history. This is all wrapped up in a singular, fabulous, narrator – Will. Obviously, by 1988 when the novel was published Hollinghurst knew this ‘take no prisoners’ way of gay life was literally dying, so it is very impressive how he tapped into the longing and nostalgia which makes the story so much more poignant today.

I moved to Toronto in the mid 1980s and began working at a place that (coincidentally) allowed me to meet (and become friends with) a lot of queer folx. Luckily, for me, I was able to experience a small amount of gay culture. I do remember, though, as time went on worrying about my friends who were really immersed in the club life and cruising whether they would make it out safely, alive, and healthy. Fortunately, the majority of us have made it to old age.

So, yes there is A LOT of graphic sex. I would argue this novel would not be possible without this. Sex is part of life, and a big part of the (gay) culture. This novel is an easy 5*.

Also, read Amanda's review for more analysis - if you haven't already.