The Liminoid in Alan Hollinghurst's The Swimming-Pool Library and The Folding Star

Abstract

This paper aims to be a first approach to the liminoid as a valuable concept in the analysis of gay fiction, more specifically Alan Hollinghurst’s first two novels. Being a classic concept, the liminoid addresses how gayness has been and still is articulated as a problematic identity, always in the make, and in a state of “inbetweenness.” As the paper shows, the liminoid in The Swimming-Pool Library (1988) and The Folding Star (1994) adopts different patterns. Both novels constitute gay Bildungsromane whose heroes return to an Arcadian scenario—namely that interstitial moment immediately prior to the onset of adulthood— where the limits between reality and fantasy do not hold. Like Derek Jarman’s film Blue, Hollinghurst’s texts deal with the liminoid as a stage of nothingness which recalls the effects of AIDS. As the paper demonstrates, the liminoid is no longer related to the characters’ middle stage in their maturation process, as in classic Bildungsromane, but to an abstract space where art breaks down ontological barriers and addresses withdrawal and renunciation.