Customer Reviews

At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Let's start off by saying this book may not be for everyone--but it should be. I'm not referring here to the fact that its three lead characters are gay, since "At Swim, Two Boys" is so much more than "a gay novel" and since, while often sensuous, it is hardly erotic. Instead, the efforts of many readers may be thwarted by O'Neill's challenging and lyrical prose, the Irish brogue and street slang, the invented Latin derivations and oh-so-clever puns. After 50 to 75 pages, though, the reader's patience is well rewarded. Once you accustom yourself to the pattern of the prose, the context provides clues to even the most unfamiliar words, and I found the book difficult to set aside. (A little advice: after you pick up the cadence of the dialect, you may well want to go back and read those beginning pages again. The second time around revealed some wonderful passages and pivotal characterizations that flew right over my head initially.)

Set during the year prior to the Easter Rising in 1916, the novel focuses on two 16-year-old boys, Doyler and Jim, and their families. The main characters are finely portrayed, and (as others have noted) they successfully arouse the reader's sympathies. But O'Neill adds a memorable supporting cast: Jim's aunt, a doddering, whiskered crone who always seems far more aware of what's going on than one is led to believe; Eva MacMurrough, a rich patron of Irish rebel causes who is flustered by her nephew's Wildean tendencies; and, for comic relief, Jim's father, a pretentious wannabe who always manages to be in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.

The most nuanced portrayal is that of the Anthony MacMurrough. Once may quibble over whether he is a pedophile: textual clues place his age in his early- to mid-20s; Doyler, his "rent boy," is 16. (If he were straight, such a relationship would be lawful and accepted in many states and most countries.) Legality aside, though, one cannot deny he is a sexual predator, and it's difficult not to detest his narcissism and self-rationalizing hedonism. But, as the novel progresses (and here I am necessarily vague in order not to give anything away), he gradually and subtly realizes that such encounters are not the road to happiness. He ultimately redeems himself, learning to find fulfillment by sharing his love rather than taking his way. But to claim that MacMurrough is a "mentor" to Doyler and Jim misses the point: he learns far more from the boys than they learn from him.

A lesser author would be foolish to tackle so much: Irish nationalism, sexual orientation, Catholic guilt, alcoholism, class identity, unwed pregnancy, unionism and socialism, the burden of tradition, Joyce and Wilde and Flann O'Brien. O'Neill's success is his enviable ability to weave together all these topics so seamlessly while fashioning a unique and lyrical voice and spinning a page-turning, heartbreaking yarn.

This is easily the best novel I've read this year. Anyone who can't relate to the universal, and universally appealing, themes that O'Neill treats in this ambitious work simply isn't reading with either an open mind or an open heart.

This is not a "genre" novel; it's outstanding writing by any standards one could think to apply. The story is tightly crafted, rich and complex, and the characters are unforgettable. And yes, as some reviewers discovered to their chagrin, a number of them display the moral ambiguity so characteristic of our species.

I gave this novel to my wife when I finished it, and recommended it to my (also straight) 22-year-old son. If you love fine writing and aren't obsessed with hating those whose sexual orientation puts them in the minority, you'll be deeply moved by this novel.

The tragedy of this book is that thoughtful people who might overwise read it may not because they perceive it as a "gay" novel, whatever that means. This is a gay novel in the way BELOVED is a black novel or PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT is a Jewish novel. A book that anyone who loves serious literature should read, it has all the things I look for in a good novel: an involved plot, wonderful character development and beautiful language. If you believe the old fashioned novel is dead, At SWIM TWO BOYS should convince you otherwise. It actually feels like a 19th century novel in its epic quality. Yes, the three main characters are gay; and this book is as good as any-- perhaps better than any with gay characters I can recall. Almost 600 pages long-- you will be amazed at how quickly the pages fly by-- the novel is set in Ireland in 1915 and 1916. The three main characters, two teenage boys, Jim and Doyler and an adult, MacMurrough, become as real to you as your friends and family. These characters possess a resilience and courage that will make you care for them desperately. Ultimately they will break your heart.

Mr. O'Neill's prose is fine indeed. One example: there is a wonderful scene when MacMurrough watches Jim leave him. "A terrible fear shook him, a fear for his boy and what the future might hold. Lest he should stumble and the crowd should find him. For we live as angels among the Sodomites. And every day the crowd finds some one of us out. . . There is no grand mistake. Aristotle wrote something that Augustine got wrong that Aquinas codified in law. . . What hates is madness. There's no reason, only madness. . . Who but a madman could revile this boy?" This is NOT the love that dare not speak its name.

Words used to describe this novel sound trite: "honor," "optimism," "friendship," "patriotism," "love." We can only hope Mr. O'Neill does not take 10 years to write another novel.

A good book. Maybe even a great book. Joycean in quality, even in language, a little, but never inaccessible, never private, and always gorgeously poetic...

It's a simple tale about a difficult time: the story of the friendship and love between two Irish boys, Jim and Doyler (one poor, the other poorer) in the years leading up to the Easter Rising. The period is brilliantly evoked: the wealth (faux or true) of the gentry contrasted with the abject poverty of so many others, the incredible sociopolitical power wielded by the Roman Catholic Church, the overwhelming depressive feeling of being colonized by the British as well as the fears of those who've thrived (or at least endured) during the British regime, the stirrings of nationalism, the rationalization of violence, the events of the Rising itself. One could make a case for the core theme of this novel to be that of rebellion---that of the country echoing that of the boys, their mentor, their families---with all the plotting, secrets, fear, and frustration that such rebellion entails.

It's a heartbreaking book. It doesn't take a romantic view of Ireland, though there are romantics a-plenty among the cast of characters. It can be painful to see someone's idealism break like a wave against the rock of an unjust law, a social paradigm, an historical event. And it's also wonderful to experience someone pulling a moral, true action from beneath a facade of politesse or a lifelong habit of obedience.

I cried at the end. The plot crescendoes like a great cresting wave of events, emotion, loss, and love, and I felt it in my gut. Maybe it had a little more resonance for me because my dad had cousins who died in the Rising, but this is a book for anyone to read who likes a character-driven story that is beautifully told. Yes, there's more than a little violence, and there's distressful images of poverty, and there's thuggishness, and tragedy, and sex, but also heroism, idealism, and love, and it all adds up to what Yeats called "a terrible beauty."

It ain't pretty, but it is beautiful. Perilously so. Read it and weep.

I am exhausted, having stayed up all night to finish At Swim, Two Boys. This is a remarkable work on many levels. In one sense, this is a love story of the Oscar Wilde variety, so a number of readers will be put off. In another sense, it is a powerful condemnation of the Catholic Church, so others will be offended. It is a history of Irish music, Irish conflict, Irish class, Irish Civil War. It is comic, tragic, epic, and moving.

Jamie O'Neill's characters ring true in terms of dialogue, motivation, and depth. Anthony MacMurrough's internal dialogues with his inner voices/vices is fascinating; it brings to mind the realistic imagined beings in "A Beautiful Mind." The adolescent pains and pangs of Jim Mack and Doyle ring true. Longing, loyalty, and lust are artfully conjured. Every character is someone I would like to know-the comic/tragic/punny father of Jim, the powerful McMurrough (childless) matriarch, the whiskered, wise aunt.

O'Neill's descriptions of the land and sea paint a vivid portrait of the beauty of Ireland, and his painting of human and civil conflict is superb. This book humanizes the Irish conflict. It captures and caresses many aspects of Irish culture. And it is a beautiful love story.

I will read this book again to explore its depths, its masterful dialogues and dialects, its drama and beauty. The comparisons to Joyce and Dickens will not seem excessive if you dive into this glorious book.

This is a novel that asks a lot of its reader. For one thing, it asks that you spend dozens and dozens of pages in the mind of a recently released "unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort", a mind that is already occupied by an Oxford don, a nanny, a chaplain, and a strong sexuality personified with the name (you guessed it) Dick. It also asks you to at times decipher archaic Irish slang, and to know at least something about the time period, and to have a fairly good knowledge of Oscar Wilde. It asks you to have a long attention span and to pay attention to every word.

It's all worth it in the end.

While certainly not light reading, At Swim, Two Boys is highly engrossing and remains one of the few books that has actually made me start crying. Far from entirely tragic, however, it has several moments that leave me screaming with laughter - I don't think I'll ever look at a flute, a toadstool, or sticky buns the same way again.

There are several reviews here that go into great detail about Jim and Doyler, so allow me to focus on MacMurrough. The first time I read this book, I started off hating him. Intensely. With passion. Frankly, I wished he'd jump off the Forty Foot and drown himself so everyone else might have a less complicated life.

Near the middle, though, I felt too sorry for him to actually hate him. Two-thirds of the way through, I found I rather liked him. By the time one-fourth of the book remained, he had a permanent place among my favorite fictional characters. Such is the power of Jamie O'Neill.

Jim and Doyler, though, are wonderful as well. They are truly pals of the heart in the best possible sense.

Really, just go on and read it already.

AT SWIM, TWO BOYS is one of the most innovative books to come along in years. In this massive tome, writer O'Neill shows deep respect for the intellect of his readers: getting into this book requires a lot of work to become comfortable with all the Irish terms, the style of writing, the complex history of Ireland, and just the need for a handy thesaurus. But what a poet he is! O'Neill paints 1915-1916 Ireland the way few others outside of James Joyce have been able. Within paragraphs he plays with rhyming, juxtapositions, partial phrases, repeated thoughts, all in a way that is unobtrusively additive to the experience of reading this story. Given all the facility and beauty and complexity of the writing, it would be for naught if the story weren't there. But it is here, in the groin of the book, that O'Neill is able to deliver the goods. He has chosen to reveal a univeral process - the sexual awakening of two lads - in the context of all the joys of childhood (pranks, daring swimming in the cold ocean, finding home in the face of poverty) and all the fears of adulthood (the threat of war, the menace of the inner twistings of the Irish Catholic Church, the drive for nationalism, etc). His characters are without exception realisticallly fleshed out, so much so that character development of even the smallest role is thoroughly and surprising unfolded as the story gains momentum. Nothing is as it first seems; everything is evolving as the working facades of people alter with probing and in conjunction with the plot development. The Gentry, the poor, the priests, the Volunteer Army, the land and sea all undulate and intertwine in O'Neill's wizardlike hands. We end up caring for people we thought were one dimensional: we grow to love the people who live within the covers of this book as much as the two young lads grow to love each other.

I am sad to observe that this brilliant book is not on the Best Sellers Lists in this country. Yes, the book deals with same sex love, with a man who gently introduces the Greek Ideal of love so often quoted by Oscar Wilde to his proteges. Buy it is time to bury homophobia and I cannot imagine a more sophisticated book to achieve understanding than this.

Brilliant!

A warm rush of the benevolent nature of fate washes over me. A desire to join the ranks of some noble army, or ignoble, whichever so long as my lover is at my side. Two days have passed since I finished reading At Swim Two Boys two days ago, and I have yet to stop thinking and rethinking the events and characters of the novel. O'Neil's poetic prose is at first quite difficult, but it eventually allows the reader to feel secretly aware of the inner workings of the characters. His style, with its inner weavings, makes the reader yearn to discover things just as the characters would. O'Neil has an innate ability to redefine the perspective of his characters without making it seem a deliberate action.
One of his stylistic choices that I found most captivating is the naming and renaming of characters and places. Madame MacMurrough becomes Evaline MacMurrough then Aunt Eva as the reader learns more and more about her. Mr. MacMurrough becomes simply MacMurrough as he takes his place as the heir to the legacy, but once he has spent time with Jim he becomes MacEm, a pet name that takes his austerity and replaces it with fondness. This renaming allows the reader an insight not only into the characters themselves, but also lets one see through the thoughts of the character who is doing the naming. Mr. Mack changes our view of every character by the way they see him. MacMurrough's complacency falters when he gets to know Jim, whom he first refers to as the "comfort for the troops." Each character moves from a place of relative unknown to a place in the reader's heart by the end of the novel. I would advise any reader to pay attention to this facet of the novel. Even Jim's sexual self-discovery is a process of renaming. This attention to the detail of names is both fascinating and endearing, allowing an insight into the way the human mind categorizes its surroundings.
By far, my favorite character is Anthony MacMurrough. He develops from a place of mental abandon, from his categorizing his emotions into characters, to a person willing to look at the world with fresh eyes, even taking on the burden of hope.
It is this love for his characters that makes O'Neil's work so incredible. Each has their faults, their flaws, and their misgivings, but they arise to a point of imperfect perfection. The novel is epic in proportion while being beguilingly commonplace in its details. The romance is innocent and beautiful, though I would advise any reader having misgivings about a sex scene to think twice. The homosexual content of the novel is at first veiled and innocent, as we see it through Jim's developing eyes. By the end of the novel, it becomes quite graphic. To put it succinctly, I wouldn't recommend this book to my mother. This is my only misgiving in recommending the novel. As a young gay man myself, even I found these scenes a bit too detailed, the sex more than the love seeming at times contrived. It was the Spartan nature of the love that made it so appealing and captivating. I would have rather heard directly what was happening near the end of the novel than have it persist in being veiled, or perhaps it could have been mentioned without being dwelt upon.
However, the novel is by no means over-sexed. To turn the coin and look at the treatment of homosexuality theoretically, O'Neil's constant questioning of its nature and origin through MacMurrough's character is nothing less than completely brilliant and honest. To be gay is to constantly question oneself, especially and most importantly if the mind is either analytically or spiritually focused. When Jim reaches his point of sexual self-realization, his reaction is poignant and turgid, much like my own was. His self-loathing is just as understandable as MacMurrough's dissection of his mind and his trials before Scrotes and his philosophers. To read this novel is to understand the gay mind as a nobler entity than it is stereotyped to be. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand homosexuality on a deeper level, or simply to anyone who wishes to understand how the human mind deals with any sort of inner turmoil. At Swim Two Boys is a brilliant work of fiction. It is honest and accessible, and in spite of myself I was laughing and crying through from start to finish.

As a man of Irish ancestry and as a firm believer in equaility amongst all persuasions, I found this novel to be among the best I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Mr. O'Neills sensitve descripition of the innocent blossoming of youthful love and it's ultimate conclusion had this reader in a firm grip - Pal of my heart as an expression of love will stay with me all my days.
Mr. O'Neills use of the Erse language expressions and his beautiful sentence structures left me in awe of his grasp of the idiom; as a man in his late sixties, I recall some of my older Irish relatives using some of these same expressions/words that I have never seen as written words until this book - my old aunt used to say what I thought was "skinny merink" to describe a thin person and I find Mr.O'Neills "skinamalink" is an actual expression/word. Other examples were Galoot and galimafree -again words from my callow youth.
But I digress; this is about a great feat of writing on Mr. O'Neills part, not my youthful recollections even though they do dovetail. What more can one say-- my unhappiest moment this year was when I turned over the last page of this tour de force of the written word.
It is a story of young love and war -- and it is beautiful. Good for you, Mr. O'Neill.I await your next book.

I sat down and read the first chapter before deciding to buy because I knew this would be a challenge. As has been said before the book is hypnotic in its phrasing, that is, the Irish style English of beautiful rhythms and unique wording. It takes some getting used to, but it's well worth the effort.

I found the intimacy between Doyler and Jim very touching and totally believable but -- thank god -- not overwrought or written as soft porn. I identified with both of them at several points.

What makes this work so great, so literay, is that it lifts these individuals into whole people with depth who are more than their sexuality. Setting the story when Wilde was imprisoned, a dark time in gay history, brings into relief that the coming out process is always the same. I found compelling his use of the Easter Uprising to draw parallels between the "lover-soldiers" Spartans and Doyler and Jim.

I loved it so much I think I picked up an Irish accent reading it! A must recommend to all my friends.