At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.88 (580 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B001OW5O54 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 576 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-08-21 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"Exceptional in many many ways" according to C. Collins. If there was any way I could give this exceptional novel 10 stars, I certainly would. To say it is 'exceptional' is to understate the power of Jamie O'Neill's labor of love. Whereas anyone would find the novel to be superb, I think gay men would especially identify with the struggle for identity in a society that represses that identity. In this regard the book resonates with E.M. Forrester's Maurice and with Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt.Many reviewers have discussed the touching and tragic. "It grows and grows" according to Vinzo. As the other reviewers have noted, the dialect and some of the local references are difficult to comprehend at first and at times, you lose the impact of dramatic events in this wonderful story. Do not let that stop you from diving into this magnificent tale. The characters are fully developed and, as each flaw is drawn, a lovable quality emerges. Doyler, tough, angry and bitter, is so beautifully warm and loving to Jim. Mr. Mack, alone, uncertain, is so loving a father to his boys. As you proce. Adrift in Dalkey Bay For anyone who loves the Irish, this book will grab your heart and spin you around Dublin until you feel right at home in 1916. The boys are bittersweet - a gay love story with more rejection and regret than passion - coming of age where the choices are the priesthood and the IRA rather than choosing each other. All the characters create their own depth. Even the least interesting ones somehow come alive. They are not characters but real people who live in your mind and draw out your feelings. T
Plunder the literature for words they can speak. For as Ireland seeks its own future free of British government, so Jim, Doyle, and MacMurrough look back to Sparta to find a way to live. In the spring of 1915, Jim Mack and "the Doyler," two Dublin boys, make a pact to swim to an island in Dublin Bay the following Easter. But Dickens never wrote a love story between young men as achingly beautiful as this. In the character of Anthony MacMurrough, who is haunted by voices as he pursues his illegal and dangerous desire for Dublin boys, O'Neill has created a complex and fascinating center to his novel, rescuing the love story from mawkishness, and allowing a serious meditation on history, politics, and desire. In this massive, enthralling, and brilliant debut, Jamie O'Neil
Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains unaware of the depth of the boys' burgeoning friendship and of the changing landscape of a nation.. All the while Mr. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son -- revolutionary and blasphemous -- of Mr. Mack's old army pal. Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O'Neill. Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916 -- Ireland's brave but fractured revolt against British rule -- At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history