At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel
by Jamie O'Neill
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jamie O'NeillEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-02-25
ISBN: 0743222954
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Scribner
Book Reviews of At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel
Book Review: A marvelous novel of two boys coming of age on the eve of the Irish uprising
Summary: 5 Stars
In trying to convey just how much there is in Jamie O'Neill's At Swim Two Boys, it is hard to know where to begin because there are so many wonderful things about it. It's one of those novels that transports the reader to a different time and place, immersing you so thoroughly in its world that all else fades away while you are reading it. The characters are so vividly portrayed that the reader can see their faces, hear their voices, even sense their body language, their walks and their mannerisms, and above all, come to care deeply about them. It's also a very historical novel, set in Dublin at the time of the Irish Easter Uprising of 1916, and the characters are woven into the backdrop of that era along with real historical figures who played a part in the events that unfold.
Although the heart of the novel is the relationship between the two boys of the title - Jim Mack and Doyler Doyle - the novel itself is actually a broad tapestry in which the threads bind together a varied cast of characters from three households. The Macks are people of very modest means, living just above their shop in what might be the lowest rung of Irish middle class existence. Jim Mack, the rather introverted scholarship student who wonders if he has a calling. His older brother, Gordie, who's joined the British army and is off to fight in WWI, more to get away than anything else. Their father, Mister Mack, a well-meaning man but one so obsessed about "moving up in the world" that he is often oblivious to what is going on about him. And Aunt Sawney, a wise old soul who sees everything that Mister Mack doesn't. The Doyles are fortune's other children. Doyler Doyle is a brash dark-haired extrovert to Jim's quiet introvert, a lad who at 12 won the same scholarship as Jim but then mysteriously vanished, reappearing years later with a limp in his gait and a chip on his shoulder. His father Mick Doyle, a bitter drunk who in a lyrical parallel was the "pal o' me heart" in years past to Jim's father, Mister Mack, till turns in fortune split them apart. And Doyler's mother, who holds her family together as best she can, bearing the weight of her life in uncomplaining penance. And last but far from least, the MacMurroughs, an old and respected family of the Irish gentry. MacMurrough, recently returned from England after having served two years in prison for indiscretions with a young chauffeur/mechanic. And his aunt, a woman of surprising iron who romantically champions the cause of an independent Ireland.
One of the many things that stand out in At Swim, Two Boys is O'Neill's love of, and masterful use of, the beauty of language, both in immersing the reader in the time and place of the novel and in giving distinct voices to each of the characters. When you start the novel, it's an experience somewhat akin to the beginning of a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays where you have to bear with the oddities of speech and word until they become familiar enough that you grasp the full meaning of what is going on and appreciate the sheer beauty of the language, the only difference being that instead of Elizabethan English the novel immerses you in Irish English with its many distinctive quirks and expressions. It takes a while to get into, but after about fifty pages or so you truly find yourself transported to the Dublin of a century ago. O'Neill truly brings the period to life, showing through his characters how language both divides and defines people, by nationality, social class, status, politics and life experiences.
For me, one of the most moving things about At Swim, Two Boys is the "pal o' me heart" relationship between Jim and Doyler, which can take you back to just what it meant at that age to have someone who was your true best friend and what it felt like. Like this bit which captures the moment when Jim suddenly sees Doyler, his best friend from when they were 12 years old, reappearing for the first time in four years:
"It was time to be gone, but a murmur of voices cautioned him. The bathers from the Forty Foot had rounded the bend and were nearing the promenade below. The younger was a shock-headed black-haired lad, Jim's age, though bigger-built. He tossed his cap in the air as he walked and as he walked he lurched slightly, weak of one leg. For all he had been swimming, he had a filthy look about him and his towel was a rag of threads. The other, by his tweeds and tone, was of the quality.
--Jim believed he recognized the lad. He was not sure but, delaying to see, he left it too late to leave. Movement now would draw their attention.
--They halted at the private stpes that led to Ballygihen House. The toney man, who had his back to Jim, said, "I might show you still, if you'd a mind."
--The lad shook his head. "Due back for work. Already late as it is."
--"Another time, perhaps. I believe you'd take to it. Don't think about the leg. You're quick enough off the mark."
--"Another day maybe." He had the usual Dublin drawl, but with an open edge, like a kick, at the end of it. Breath of the west, jim thought.
--The man made a sudden motion -- "Here," he said -- and silver spun in the air. A fist shot out and nimbly the lad caught the coin.
--"For your trouble," said the man.
--Ivory flashed between thick dirty lips. "No trouble at all." The smile, like the face, was familiar. Then the lad's gaze lifted and he saw Jim watching from above. His eyes were dark as night, not dull, but gemmily shining. The smile broadened as though in invitation, as though the rocky shore and the birds and the blue were his to share.
--"What cheer, eh?" he called.
--Jim found himself smiling back. And long after, while he scorched down Glasthule Road, well late for school, he was smiling still. What curious cheer."
I highly, highly recommend this novel for anyone with a love of literature, of language, of intimate historical portrayal, and of stories of the universal trials and joys of family, friendship and love.
Summary of At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel
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. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O'Neill.Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son -- revolutionary and blasphemous -- of Mr. Mack's old army pal. 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. All the while Mr. 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.
You may have read the hype. Irishman Jamie O'Neill was working as a London hospital porter when his 10-year labor of love, the 200,000-word manuscript of At Swim, Two Boys, written on a laptop during quiet patches at work, was suddenly snapped up for a hefty six-figure advance. For once, the book fully deserves the hype.
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. By the time they do, Dublin has been consumed by the Easter Uprising, and the boys' friendship has blossomed into love--a love that will in time be overtaken by tragedy. O'Neill's prose, playing merrily with vocabulary, syntax, and idiom, has unsurprisingly drawn comparisons to James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, but in his creation of comic characters (such as Jim's pathetic but irrepressible father) and in the sheer scale of his work, Charles Dickens springs to mind first. 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. 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. As Dr Scrotes, one of MacMurrough's voices, commands:
Help these boys build a nation of their own. Ransack the histories for clues to their past. Plunder the literature for words they can speak.In this massive, enthralling, and brilliant debut, Jamie O'Neill has indeed done just that: provided a nation for what Walt Whitman calls, in O'Neill's epigraph, "the love of comrades." --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk
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