hattifattener 's review for:

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill

3.0

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Anthony MacMurrough and his internal dialogues with Dr. Scrotes: these are clear, humorous, fascinating and sharply insightful. I was always eager to be a fly on the wall for these conversations, even flipping ahead a few pages to see if there was one coming up for which to keep reading an extra hour. Because this is indeed a dense book, and the other components of the delirious literary feast are varied, sometimes perplexing, and unexpectedly matched. I can see how some would find genius in this: combined they create a uniquely rich world, so full of personalities (large, small, reappearing and fleeting) and clamor that it is boundless and real. As a story I find it a bit over-adorned. I suppose O'Neill wants to capture a moment in a world in time, which is pretty ambitious and I daresay he's more successful than would seem possible. But his mission of narrative (this is about two boys and this is their story's linear plot line, interrupted frequently and sometimes recorded in vague and mostly-impenetrable language) is, I believe, primary, and ultimately all the other noise (however pretty and riveting and perhaps clarifying) overwhelms it. It's actually a rather simple story, with a too-simple ending (leaning towards cliche), with beautiful moments and passages of both stark simplicity and mesmerizing complexity.