Sun-Worship and the Idolatry of Images: Derek Jarman, Philip Glass, and The Swimming-Pool Library

Abstract

The thematic trajectory of The Swimming-Pool Library is outlined in an early scene in which William Beckwith first visits the elderly aristocrat Charles Nantwich at his home on Skinner’s Lane, not far from St Paul’s.¹ The well-heeled gentility of Will’s afternoon call makes a pointed contrast to the very different social context in which these two men had first met. After Will had followed ‘a lone Arab boy’ into the public restrooms in Kensington Gardens in search of casual sex, he witnessed Charles — at 83 years old, still apparently interested in the concept, if not the objective, of cottaging — collapse from a heart attack (SPL 6). ‘You were the chappy that, er, puff-puff, bang-bang & I say, goodness me’, Charles later remembers of Will’s lifesaving efforts when they happen to meet in the locker room of their gym, the Corinthian Club (SPL 27). The two become friends and Charles soon invites Will for tea at his home, with the hope of securing the young man as his biographer. ‘There are things I want to show you, and ask you, too,’ he explains to Will. ‘It’s quite a little museum I have here’ (SPL 75).