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ABSTRACT
This article contends that the evolution from a postmodern to a transmodern paradigm explains the changes in gay and queer representation from Alan Hollinghurst’s The Swimming-Pool Library to Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milk. With this purpose in mind, the analysis is structured on a triple axis: the articulation of non-western bodies and sexuality; the temporal framings that convey both novels’ discourses; and the progression from neo-Freudian trauma narratives to decolonized ones. After close reading the two novels, it can be argued that Rainbow Milk contests The Swimming-Pool Library on all three concerns. The black queer body is not only vindicated, but given a voice of its own. The teleological framework, which Hollinghurst’s novel revises, does not work in Mendez’s. Finally, Rainbow Milk works through the individual and collective traumata of the protagonist and his community instead of acting out a discursive aporia.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the European Regional Development Fund (DGI/ERDF) (code FFI2017-84258-P), the Government of Aragón and the FSE 2020–2022 programme (code H03_20R), and IEDIS for the writing of this essay.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Hollinghurst.
2 Mendez.
3 Rodríguez-Magda, “The Crossroads of Transmodernity,” 21.
4 Nünning, 363.
5 Rodríguez-Magda, “Transmodernity: A New Paradigm”, n.p.
6 Rodríguez-Magda, La Sonrisa de Saturno, 142.
7 Epstein et al., 2.
8 Aliaga and Yebra, 240.
9 Ibid., 240.
10 Ibid., 240–1.
11 Ibid., 242.
12 Nelson, 9.
13 Mendez, 25.
14 Ibid., 25.
15 Ibid., 25.
16 Ibid., 25.
17 Hollinghurst, 113.
18 Ibid., 241.
19 Lane, 192.
20 Hollinghurst, 206.
21 Lane, 183.
22 Hollinghurst, 245.
23 Ibid., 187.
24 Ibid., 187.
25 Ibid., 187.
26 Ibid., 188.
27 Ibid., 188.
28 Nixon, 304.
29 Timberg, “How Mapplethorpe won: The Jesse Helms Art World Culture Wars Are Over,” http://www.salon.com/2016/04/05/how_mapplethorpe_won_the_jesse_helms_art_world_culture_wars_are_over/. (2016): n.p.
30 Morgensen.
31 Nixon, 304.
32 Hollinghurst, 5.
33 Ibid., 215.
34 In Nixon, 308.
35 Mendez, 93.
36 Ibid., 93.
37 Ibid., 93.
38 Ibid., 95.
39 Ibid., 94.
40 Ibid., 57.
41 Ibid., 54.
42 Anderson et al., 316.
43 Mendez, 276, 279.
44 Ibid., 279.
45 Ibid., 263.
46 Hollinghurst, 172.
47 Ibid., 174.
48 Mendez, 94.
49 Ibid., 96.
50 Ibid., 94.
51 Ibid., 139.
52 Ibid., 125 (my italics).
53 Ibid., 171.
54 Ibid., 201.
55 Ibid., 207.
56 Ibid., 285.
57 Ibid., 285–6.
58 Ibid., 286.
59 Ibid., 287.
60 Ibid., 290.
61 Ibid., 290.
62 Ibid., 291.
63 McKeown et al., 850.
64 Mendez, 291.
65 Ibid., 291.
66 Ibid., 293.
67 Ibid., 293.
68 McKeown, 850; Flannigan-Saint-Aubin, 471; Hatt, 21–35.
69 Legget, 149.
70 Douglas Coupland, “Convergences. Review of Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru.” The New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/books/review/gods-without-men-by-hari-kunzru.html. 2012), n.p.
71 Ibid., n.p.
72 Hollinghurst, 281.
73 Ibid., 3.
74 Ibid., 260.
75 Ibid., 250.
76 Bradley, 4.
77 Hollinghurst, 281.
78 Mousoutzanis.
79 Ibid., 9.
80 Dinshaw, 185.
81 Freccero, 486.
82 Halberstam, 182.
83 Freccero, 489.
84 Baggett.
85 Mumford, 2.
86 Rivers, 537.
87 Menon, 496.
88 Mendez, 263, my italics.
89 Ibid., 303.
90 Ibid., 304.
91 Ibid., 305.
92 Ibid., 305.
93 Ibid., 307.
94 Caruth.
95 Hartman.
96 Felman and Laub.
97 Caruth, 3.
98 Hollinghurst, 278.
99 Ibid., 281.
100 Caruth, 4.
101 Ibid., 6.
102 Ibid., 7.
103 Hollinghurst, 4.
104 In Canning, 337.
105 LaCapra.
106 Visser, “Decolonizing,” 254.
107 Luckhurst.
108 LaCapra, 22.
109 Caruth, 8.
110 Ibid., 9.
111 Hollinghurst, 250.
112 Andermahr, 500.
113 Craps and Buelens.
114 Rothberg.
115 Andermahr, 500–1.
116 Visser, “Decolonizing,” 252.
117 Craps, 2.
118 Visser, “Decolonizing,” 252.
119 Rothberg, 228.
120 Visser, “Decolonizing,” 254.
121 Mendez, 293.
122 Ibid., 293.
123 Visser, “Decolonizing,” 252.
124 Mendez, Rainbow, 230.
125 Ibid., 231.
126 Ibid., 246.
127 Visser, “Decolonizing,” 258.
128 In Visser, 256.
129 Konner, 300.
130 Visser, “Trauma,” 127.
131 Rothberg, 230.
132 Mendez, 264.
133 Ibid., 266.
134 Ibid., 266.
135 Ibid., 266.
136 Ibid., 266.
137 Ibid., 267.
138 Ibid., 271.
139 Ibid., 277.
140 Ibid., 281.
141 Ibid., 245.