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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
Why do LGBT books set at a certain time period always have to be so tragic?
This book occupies a certain zone of being a YA book but at the same time something more than that. The level of detail that has gone into it elevates it above your run-of-the-mill YA novel. Every character has a unique voice and tone and sometimes you can figure out who is talking just by reading a piece of dialogue. This differentiation is even apparent when one single character has multiple voices in his own head! What still remains strictly YA for me though, were the plot conveniences. This is excusable when it happens once or twice, but I feel like it happened a lot, especially with Mr. Mack. The detailed approach doesn't segue into the character journey and the journey gets rather simplified through these conveniences. Fortunately these conveniences are not too many and don't spoil the journey in its entirety.
The best thing about this book is perhaps what is hated the most - the Irishness of the language itself. It takes some time to get used to, but the book has a unique voice that not only dates and places it, but also provides so much context for everything. A lot of passages take on a distinct beauty because of the aura of this language. There was many a place where I stopped and reread some lines to truly enjoy them. There was a definite sense of poetry in places. Sometimes the Latin and the French can feel a little intrusive, but you take it with the flow. It does give you a better sense of character of the person speaking it.
*spoilers ahead*
Perhaps if I had know the historical context of this book better I wouldn't have been so surprised by how it ended. I liked how it built up to Easter Sunday. There was a beautiful arc with both Doyler and Jim Mack and I kept wondering if it will come to head on Easter and I loved how it did. I especially loved how Mr. MacMurrough contributes to this. He was my favourite character in the book. I think I always romanticize unrequited love and this character's main angle, after a point, is just that. He has the most nuanced journey of the three central characters. At one point, it felt like this was a triangular love story that could go anyway. But it resolves itself beautifully. I loved how some of the tension remains even after this resolution and, how casual sex itself was treated in places. There is also a lot of philosophizing that is rather enjoyable especially about the nature of homosexuality and about love.
Overall this is a lovely read that you can lose yourself into. Definitely top-shelf!
This book occupies a certain zone of being a YA book but at the same time something more than that. The level of detail that has gone into it elevates it above your run-of-the-mill YA novel. Every character has a unique voice and tone and sometimes you can figure out who is talking just by reading a piece of dialogue. This differentiation is even apparent when one single character has multiple voices in his own head! What still remains strictly YA for me though, were the plot conveniences. This is excusable when it happens once or twice, but I feel like it happened a lot, especially with Mr. Mack. The detailed approach doesn't segue into the character journey and the journey gets rather simplified through these conveniences. Fortunately these conveniences are not too many and don't spoil the journey in its entirety.
The best thing about this book is perhaps what is hated the most - the Irishness of the language itself. It takes some time to get used to, but the book has a unique voice that not only dates and places it, but also provides so much context for everything. A lot of passages take on a distinct beauty because of the aura of this language. There was many a place where I stopped and reread some lines to truly enjoy them. There was a definite sense of poetry in places. Sometimes the Latin and the French can feel a little intrusive, but you take it with the flow. It does give you a better sense of character of the person speaking it.
*spoilers ahead*
Perhaps if I had know the historical context of this book better I wouldn't have been so surprised by how it ended. I liked how it built up to Easter Sunday. There was a beautiful arc with both Doyler and Jim Mack and I kept wondering if it will come to head on Easter and I loved how it did. I especially loved how Mr. MacMurrough contributes to this. He was my favourite character in the book. I think I always romanticize unrequited love and this character's main angle, after a point, is just that. He has the most nuanced journey of the three central characters. At one point, it felt like this was a triangular love story that could go anyway. But it resolves itself beautifully. I loved how some of the tension remains even after this resolution and, how casual sex itself was treated in places. There is also a lot of philosophizing that is rather enjoyable especially about the nature of homosexuality and about love.
Overall this is a lovely read that you can lose yourself into. Definitely top-shelf!
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What a masterpiece. I'm glad I read this when I did (on a holiday around Austria featuring a number of long train rides) because it was dense to start with. I'm so glad I persevered because this was a spectacular piece of literature that will really stand the test of time. Dense, almost Joyce like in its flowing, stream of consciousness prose and regional dialect filled dialogue. Sensitive, beautiful and brave.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
it's been a long time since i devoured a book with such urgency-- this was a truly perfect amalgamation of the things i've been reading lately (joyce, flann o'brien, wilde, jean genet, irish history) driven at its core by a doomed love. god, the gorgeous prose, and my guilty pleasure in all things: Classics. the masterful way it fleshed out mr mack and aunt eva, though i think eva deserved more than she got. the women in the story are generally sidelined, in a knowing way and on purpose, with a hint of Feminist Critique here and there. their relative lack of interiority didn't necessarily bother me (it makes sense for the story) but i did find myself wanting more.
predictably tragic, but spelled out so honestly from the start from the historical setting and references to tales from antiquity (once it became a full-on Patroclus retelling, it was over) that you can't help but follow their journey to the end. the one aspect that would not let me settle in comfortably was... well, macmurrough. he is a necessary character here for the story this book is trying to tell, but my god did he overstay his welcome. he could not seem to escape ancient greek models for what homosexuality must look like to be justified-- in this way, his character makes historical sense. and his previous traumas obviously had their effect on him. he was at least an interesting character at first, but then it just devolved into this morose cycle of self pity. by the last third i hated his ass i'm sorry but i did. he did not deserve any forgiveness from doyler, in my opinion, and their reconciliation felt hollow and rushed. every time he started monologuing about how pathetic he was, i began itching to turn the page... like he never actually confronted the big fucked up things he did at the start and just kind of went on this pseudo-redemption arc by looking after the two boys. unfortunately once his multiple voices went away his scenes were some of the duller, less unique moments of the book. a little bit too copy and paste from wilde, maybe
overall more a historical lyrical fiction than the traditional coming of age gay love story, this book was a gripping, gutting read. sooo many beautiful phrases underlined. im a sucker always for characters like doyler and i do appreciate that this book brought him to life. what cheer...
overall more a historical lyrical fiction than the traditional coming of age gay love story, this book was a gripping, gutting read. sooo many beautiful phrases underlined. im a sucker always for characters like doyler and i do appreciate that this book brought him to life. what cheer...
What a heady novel, plunging one into a kaleideoscope of human emotions and experience rendered in heightened language and Dublin dialects. Religious nationalism, class strife and the dramas and delights of romantic love are all explored in beautiful language and set in less than beautiful situations.
One sunny summer afternoon after a walk along Regent's Canal a group of us sat on the grassy knoll near Angel and talked about everything and nothing as we drank cider. A friend from Dublin spoke about how there is finally generation of young Irish people who are growing up who haven't directly experienced the loss of family, friends and lovers due to the Troubles. Looking back on that moment after having read this novel, I am sad that Jim, Doyle & MacMurrough never got to experience that peace.
One sunny summer afternoon after a walk along Regent's Canal a group of us sat on the grassy knoll near Angel and talked about everything and nothing as we drank cider. A friend from Dublin spoke about how there is finally generation of young Irish people who are growing up who haven't directly experienced the loss of family, friends and lovers due to the Troubles. Looking back on that moment after having read this novel, I am sad that Jim, Doyle & MacMurrough never got to experience that peace.
It's been decades since I have felt so clearly that English is not my first language as in the first 100 or so pages of this book. Then I decided to give up on trying to decipher every word of every sentence and just go with the flow. Either the writing got easier or the meaning became clearer, but I got completely sucked into this story. Obviously, this book would be easier to read if you're Irish, devoutly catholic and it would probably help if you happened to have lived in the early 20th century (in Ireland). However, lacking any or all that should NOT stop you from reading this book! Beautiful is the only word that describes it.
I loved Jim and I loved Doyler, that was easy to do, but I even came to care deeply for the characters that I thought would remain caricatures, like Mr. Mack. This made the ending impossibly moving and gut-wrenching, but I suppose inevitable. It being Irish and all.
I loved Jim and I loved Doyler, that was easy to do, but I even came to care deeply for the characters that I thought would remain caricatures, like Mr. Mack. This made the ending impossibly moving and gut-wrenching, but I suppose inevitable. It being Irish and all.
adventurous
challenging
sad
slow-paced
I would have liked this a lot more if it didn't have the pedophilia in it. I just don't understand why we lift up these authors that romanticize sex with children (yes, a 16yo is a child).
“I’m just thinking that would be pleasant. To be reading, say, out of a book, and you to come up and touch me – my neck, say, or my knee – and I’d carry on reading, I might let a smile, no more, wouldn’t lose my place on the page. It would be pleasant to come to that. We’d come so close, do you see, that I wouldn’t be surprised out of myself every time you touched.”
I wanted to start 2025 off with a familiar favorite and this was one that I knew I wanted to return to, but haven’t for some time. My first tattoo was a quote from At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill so needless to say this book has a special place in my heart. The novel takes place in the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916. Jim Mack is a naïve young student, under the thumb of his aspiring shopkeeper father. Doyler Doyle is rebellious and boisterous, the son of Mr. Mack's old army pal. Jim and Doyler grow close and make a pact. Doyler will teach Jim how to swim and in a year's time with they will make the swim from Forty Foot, a rock where men gather to bathe in the nude, to the distant island of Muglins Rock. Over the course of the year, both the boys and their home (Ireland) undergo great changes, leaving them yearning for freedom of heart and freedom from British rule.
O'Neill wrote At Swim, Two Boys in a stream-of-consciousness style of prose. I somehow had forgotten how challenging this book can be to read, very reminiscent of James Joyce, which is of course appropriate. Once I had acclimated myself to O'Neill's writing, however, I found myself drowning in the beauty of it. It really is sort of spectacular to read, even if it does at times feel as if you have to do a bit of work for the end result. I was once again impressed with how animated some of O’Neill’s characters were. Aunt Sawney and Mr. Mack are two characters who leave very distinct impressions. The book also has a lot to say about politics, class division, religion, and philosophy but it’s all woven together so seamlessly that the ideas expressed (particularly through MacMurrough) feel natural in the text.
“It was true what Jim said, this wasn’t the end but the beginning. But the wars would end one day and Jim would come then, to the island they would share. One day surely the wars would end, and Jim would come home, if only to lie broken in MacMurrough’s arms, he would come to his island home. And MacMurrough would have it built for him, brick by brick, washed by the rain and the reckless sea. In the living stream they’d swim a season. For maybe it was true that no man is an island: but he believed that two very well might be.”
MacMurrough is a character that I really reconsidered during my reading. The first time I read At Swim, Two Boys was well over a decade ago and I was so fixated on his flaws (and the connection between Doyler and Jim) that I really detested his character. I was much more sympathetic with this experience. Yes, MacMurrough does some quite questionable things, especially in the early portions of the novel, but he’s also very much a broken man still trying to create some level of good in the world (especially in his “counseling” of Doyler and Jim.) Morally gray? Absolutely. But also kind and devastating. Reflecting on his character’s experiences and the men like Oscar Wilde who faced such harsh sentences (and the people who still experience this) is heartbreaking.
It was nice to revisit this book and see that it still has the power to move me to tears. O’Neill created so many little tender moments, brimming with humanity, that really made me fell deeply in love with Jim and Doyler all over again. Pal o’ me heart. Something that I hadn’t really considered the first I read this book is that Jim and Doyler, although part of this beautiful love story, don’t actually spend that much time together during the novel. Their love is sort of isolated to these really great scenes. Being queer is often a very isolating experience in a world that doesn’t always feel built for you, and I can’t fathom how much more difficult that must been a century ago. I this this is beautifully reflected in At Swim, Two Boys.
This is one of the greatest books I've ever read. Also, it is so much about the Ireland, without ever feeling heavy-handed, that it reads like nostalgia if you've ever lived there.