| Summary: | When it first came out in 1988, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming Pool Library caused a stir. The habits and practices of the gay community (cruising, cottaging, drug consumption linked to sex) came under close scrutiny, conveying a sort of nostalgia for the pre-Aids period. If male homosexuality had been treated before, notably in the decadent age with the so-called “Uranians” it was often in an oblique or metaphorical way, as with Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray (1890-1891) or Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Works were also peddled clandestinely (Jean Lorrain’s). Alan Hollinghurst’s original approach consisted in openly treating of homosexuality in close connection with the issue of Englishness. This identity-oriented agenda which is not devoid of essentialism distinguishes his perspective from queer criticism.
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