Alan Hollinghurst Talking Books

region 's first semiautonomous counsel. —— Council. It comes after

a 30 year war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Now, it is

time for Talking Books. Alan time for Talking Books. Alan

landscape. His characters rarely whose critically acclaimed

landscape. His characters rarely likeable but always interesting

landscape. His characters rarely his modulated prose is put to great

effect not least in his frank effect not least in his frank

depictions of gay sex. Alan Hollinghurst, welcome to the

programme. Thank you.I want to start with the bigger picture, the

of your fiction, tracking the emergence of homosexuality as a

shaping force in Britain Society, emergence of homosexuality as a

from writing poetry, which you won prizes for at university in Oxford,

did you think this is what you had in the back of your mind the whole

time? I think they thought they might do both Matt actually, but

there was a moment when idealised that all of my energies had switched

from short form to the bigger one. It was when I was writing The

Swimming Pool Library, my first one, Swimming Pool Library, my first one,

that I suddenly got access to this wonderful new area of material that

had not really been written about in literary fiction in England at that

interesting. In 1967, there was the interesting. In 1967, there was the

sexual offences act, which decriminalised homosexuality in

England. The law changed overnight. The other changes were much slower

in coming about. When I was a graduate student at Oxford, I worked

on gay writers who had not been able on gay writers who had not been able

to write openly about their sexuality. People like Forster. The

whole subject was very much in my mind. Yes, I felt very fortunate,

really, that eye had all of this stuff, this new stuff to write

about. And the novel became just this irresistible medium for that.

When you say fortunate, was there any nervousness attached to tackling

the subject? A little, perhaps. It's the subject? A little, perhaps. It's

beginning of 1984, so newly 30 years was. Started writing at

beginning of 1984, so newly 30 years ago. Yes, there is something magical

about writing about writing a first novel of

course, because no one knows what you are doing and no one has any

particular expectations of it. It particular expectations of it. It

place that eye went to when I got place that eye went to when I got

home from work. —— that I went to. I was just convinced that everyone had

a good idea convinced, even though they might be

wrong, that they are doing something interesting. And that carried me

through passages of through passages of nervousness.

There were times that I was nervous and I was very fortunate that my

friend Andrew motion, we always showed each other our work. I showed

him that work and he rang me up the him that work and he rang me up the

next day and said he wanted to publish it. I did not have to go

through... The agonies of through... The agonies of

prepublication and projection. Yes, it was impossible to sell the

paperback rights before publication. People thought this isn't going to

work. I was not very widely noticed. Let's talk about why there was

difficulty in selling the paperback rights. Because it was a book that

made an incredible impact when it was published. Philip Hench said it

was extremely important of his generation. Before This Important

Library, you could not imagine a novel about gay life appealing to

anyone else. It's essentially a story about a young Mr cracked to

save the life of an elderly Mr cracked. —— a young barrister

cracked —— nobleman who saves the life of an elderly nobleman. In

ways exhilaratingly libidinous. It's ways exhilaratingly libidinous.

full of sex, pre— AIDS pleasure, in full of sex, pre— AIDS pleasure, in

the gay community. But it created a real shock. And a wonder whether he

wanted that to be the case. I hoped it would surprise more than shock.

Some people were genuinely shocked by it and some were anxious to show

that they were. Some people have that reflex when they are shocked to

say that they were bored. Some people regard it as almost in and

and logical way, as if I had taken the lead of some area of human

activity they did not know about before —— in and anthropological

way. Others way. Others took to it more

naturally, I think. Shock is rather a short—term effect to go for. Now,

I think to most reasonably literate Western readers, the book would

hardly be shopping at all —— shocking at all. So, I don't suppose

that was the effect... I suppose one intention was that you could take

gay life as much for granted as most novels take heterosexual life. That

seemed to be part of my good idea, to write from a gay point of view

completely without explanation or apology, but just to show that this

was as natural a thing for a gay person as for the majority of

heterosexual writers to write from their point of view. Did the

opinion... The nervousness about a paperback publication shift because

of the critical acclaim? I think so, yes. The book was in the top ten

bestsellers for a couple of months and so it became a property of some

commercial interest. So, yes, people overcame their own uncertainty and

there was an exciting bidding war. The ease with which were published,

with Andrew Motion at Chatto saying suggests that you had an easy way

suspect not. Hard to say. I didn't Did that lessen the excitement?

suspect not. Hard to say. I didn't know anything else. It was a fact

the time that eye was the debit the time that eye

from the establishment, as it were. editor

from the establishment, as it were. I want to talk about The Line Of

Beauty because it is very erudite and so on, but which you made the

Man Booker Prize. It also has lots of gay sex. We have this character,

Nick Guest, who goes to Oxford. He Nick Guest, who goes to Oxford. He

is a Henry James scholar. In many ways, the spirit of Henry James

becomes completely enamoured of this becomes completely enamoured of this

high Tory family that lives in central London, this very powerful

family. There is an encounter with Mrs Thatcher in the book. He dances

with Mrs Thatcher. He is sort of a cuckoo in the nest, if you like. And

it charts the rise of Thatcherism and AIDS. The sickness and

disillusionment they left behind, almost in a way we are still feeling

the ramifications of today. Yes, the ramifications of today. Yes,

that's right. I think when I'm finished the swimming pool library,

the world that eye started writing it in had changed very significantly

because of AIDS and also because of this period of political upheaval.

Tepper mentally, perhaps I am not the kind of writer that wants to

write fiction immediately that responds to what is going on at the

write fiction immediately that moment —— temperamentally. Eye could

see the AIDS crisis as part of the larger historical picture. Eye was

not writing an issue novel about that. Eye like to write —— I like to

write novels where there are at least two narrative strands that

cross over. It was interesting for me to read the book in the wake of

as if it was the most acute as if it

glad. They thought the book was dissection of that period. I am very

glad. They thought the book was rather more —— there seemed to be a

rather rosy looking back at that period. Culminating with the state

funeral. In this book, iPhoto would not write about this thing that was

so terrible at the time from an oppositional perspective, which

would be so tedious and predictable, but from the perspective of someone

who was rather seduced by it, and for that to be effective and

interesting to me, I had to make him a kind of innocence in a way. And so

he was drawn to this world he was drawn to this world of

But as they say, he remains But as they say, he remains

fundamentally an outsider. And he is welcomed into this world and is

expelled from it at the end. Your prose is very easily modulated, even

when you are fighting very racy sex scenes and that would interest a lot

of people in terms of trying to unpack its —— writing. Although some

of the sexual scenes in all of your books are quite comics, and I think

you intend that, there is still you intend that, there is still a

way of talking about homosexual sex that you write in a very modulated

way, which makes it feel incredibly elegant as well. I always thought if

you were going to write about sex, actual sexual acts, as it were, you

should do so with the same kind of should do so with the same kind of

care and attention, that he would bring to other areas of human

interaction and that would make sexual interaction is very

more interesting. I think that sexual interaction is very

interesting. All things which go on conventionally behind closed doors

in books, they endless speculation. So, I think

that is that is what I thought. You would

not want to lose your nerve about it or to move into some sort of

obviously other tone of voice or obviously other

become pornographic, which is a real something. Yes,

danger. I suppose I felt really before the swimming pool library

either medical, psychiatric, or it either medical, psychiatric, or it

was pornographic. Again, it's very hard to describe. I and very slow.

I'm very write more than 300 words in a day, I suppose. —— I only

rarely writes. And I do not revise very much after that. All of the

concentration seems to be the concentration seems to be the

writing process trying to get it right the first time. Let's talk

about the stranger's child. In some respects, in a major way to me, it

seems a departure. It begins in 1913 seems a departure. It begins in 1913

before the great War and ends in 2008 with massive lacunas and long

periods of time are missed out. You periods of time are missed out. You

ask the reader to do a lot more work. But in some ways, it seems to

me that it is a departure because although you are looking at the kind

of study of what can be said and cannot be said about the private

life of gay people, it is also a study in the vagaries of literary

reputation. I suppose the question is, is this a book that comes out of

getting older? I really think it is. As they turned 50, I became more and

more preoccupied with these more preoccupied with these

we remember and how we shape memory, questions of memory, of how patchily

we remember and how we shape memory, however body shapes memory, usually

favourably but sometimes perversely not, the narrative of their own

lives. If we were asked to sit an exam in the life of people be

considered very close to, the amount you would not know at all is quite

amazing. I love you chose to focus on a poet who obviously inspired by

Rupert Brooke. He was really not as look. So

Valance, who was a minor poet but has written this poll that has

become a kind of national poll, if become a kind of national poll, if

you like, because Winston Churchill refers to it in Parliament and he

dies during the first great War dies during the first great War and

anyone who has anything to do with this man is then an peaked out by

this young man called Paul Bryant, again somebody comes from a much

lower class than the poet who is engaged in being interested in these

place in English history. There is place in English history. There is

something about an England of a particular time that really

interest. From where does that come? Why did that want —— why do you want

that chronicled in a way that you have? I am not quite sure. I was

interested in the shift of power. Who has control of this story, as it

were. There were two attempts to write the life of Cecil Valance. The

first was in 1926, ten years after his death, and we see those gathered

after his death and someone will write a memoir and becomes apparent

that memoir is so strictly controlled by his terrified mother

that the complex truth about him as a person is not going to emerge at

all. And all. And something almost

unrecognisable, and idealised per trip —— and idealised portrait will

emerge from that. I hope that the five sections of the book chart

these changes in the ethical mood through the century. With each

section, you feel that things become less inhibited. It is a gradual

the fourth part of the book, where Paul Bryant is doing is part of

book, he is overexcited by all these book, he is overexcited by all these

new freedoms where you can say anything you like. We never quite

know how good is life of Cecil Bryant is. ——

remember that feeling in the 1970s remember that feeling in the 1970s

that you could save. —— all the Oxford and there was all this

that you could save. —— all the stuff you could say at last. People

got carried away by the zeal and the gay subject was made to be the most

important thing of all. We start talking about Benjamin Britten's

operas and gay interpretations of everything. Now, it forms part of a

larger, more balanced appreciation of the Benjamin Britten. There are

was interested in. Do you see was interested in. Do you see

yourself writing a book that was not informed by what has not have at its

heart a gay protagonist? I think in a way that the central character of

The Stranger's Child was Daphne, who was a heterosexual woman, the ones

who gets tangled up with an unconscionable number of gay and

bisexual men. I feel that there are quite a lot of books about

heterosexual people already. I don't feel that there is an obligation to

add to their number. It feels schematic when one talks about them

like this. I very rarely decide that Books will come to me and it

an going to write a Books will come to me and it

stimulate in my mind in a mysterious way which I cannot quite describe.

That is what I have got. I think that I will always write about —

part of the book will always be about gay experience. Part of my

motivation is more to do with how much has shifted and so much of what

you write about is partly you write about is partly the

characters engaged in what they characters engaged in what they are

doing, it is thrilling because it is illicit and it is no longer illicit.

recognised now, society is shifting That gay unions are legally

recognised now, society is shifting not just in this country but

countries around the world. countries around the world.

Obviously there are still major issues in many countries but on the

whole, the social and cultural landscape has shifted so profoundly

that in a way, it is more of a challenge for you, is it not, to

write about the ordinariness of it? write about the ordinariness of it?

That is right. I've had a lovely dual sense of gayness, as been

completely ordinary, as it were but completely ordinary, as it were but

right. The whole landscapes and I right. The whole landscapes and I

began writing has changed almost out of recognition. All the urgency and

in a way the in your face—ness of what I started, part of the point of

it, has rather drained out of the subject. I think that is why I will

not write quite so thematically all not write quite so thematically all

day —— all gay novels. I feel like I am broadening the canvas all the

time. But with that thread of gay interest always in there. You are

right that are seen to be drawn back to periods when it was more

difficult, being gay. I think that the novelist, that is wonderfully

interesting material and things are, as you say, possibly illegal,

when things have to be communicated in the coded ways. There is

about... Giving your interesting about...

swimming pool library as well when biography because it appeared in

swimming pool library as well when Nantwich's biography and

of him doing the research, not least of things are revealed as a

about William Beckwith's own family and his own identity as

just wonder whether that is an area just

whether you want to explore, would whether you want to explore, would

some of the people you admired the some of the people you admired the

Firbank who appears time and again Firbank who appears time and again

I love Ronald Firbank and aim always as somebody who is a hero of yours?

biography of Ronald Firbank, try to do things for

biography of Ronald Firbank, something which is badly needed as

the anyone is is kind of hopelessly inadequate. Why was he so important?

Not just EU? —— not just to you. He was a strange, inimitable writer and

he has had an enormous influence, much more of an influence than

writers of the same period like James Joyce who I have always

treated as the great experiment, and so forth. Ronald Firbank sexualised

the novel in its fascinating way —— the most sexualised. He is frank and

camp and a very radical. —— homosexualised. He did away with all

the apparatus of the Victorian novel and with its, sort of, internal

subject of boys and girls are subject of boys and girls are

falling in love with each other and falling in love with each other and

getting married. —— eternal subject. I was thinking of writing his life

and a friend wrote to me and said that he was writing a life of Ronald

Firbank and I was furious for a day Firbank and I was furious for a

or two and then it was a huge or two and then it was a huge

relief. It may be one of the things after which a The Stranger's Child

grew. I'm not really cut out to write a biography but I may be cut

out to write fiction. To explore out to write fiction. To explore

these issues around biography and fiction would be more entertaining.

sort of poignancy in him having been sort of poignancy in him having been

forgotten in a way which appears in your musings about biography and

memory and what we remember. Yes.I wonder, if you had it in your gift,

how would you want to be remembered as a writer? I never think about

being remembered. At all. That is probably a healthy sign, isn't it?

Or to be thought of? Because there Or to be thought of? Because there

is, the we are always there is a cannon. There are people at the

is, the we are always there is a of that cannon and there are people

there are people who do not appear at the

there are people who do not appear at all. You have some sense of

yourself as someone who has reached a particular scale, if you like, or

perhaps not? Identical perhaps not? Identical ado,

actually. —— I don't think I do, actually. —— I don't think I do,

actually. We talked about writers and other periods but there is

I don't think that I am booking my I don't think that I am booking

place in the cannon with this place in the cannon with this

particular number. There really are particular number. There really are

issues which don't occur to me particularly. That is not false

modesty or anything. It is just not modesty or anything. It is just not

how I think. I have become very uncompetitive about writing. I am

delighted by the success of my friends. What one hopes to do is

read a game. I was a mentally read a game. I was a mentally

they have read a book of mind they have read a book of mind

twice. —— a game. Especially The Stranger's Child because when you

read the second time, you get more out it. —— again. I love it when

people tell me that my books made them laugh because that is one of

the things that I admire most in Reading. I can render funny book

which was not especially good which had a good joke in it long after I

have forgotten greater and duller ones. Thank you very