At Swim, Two Boys
a book review by Shannon
Jamie O’Neill’s 2001 novel about the
relationship between two teenage boys, their friendship and their love,
takes place in Ireland in 1916. The timeframe and plot points of the
book are centred between spring 1915 and Easter 1916 – the
weekend of the Easter Rising, an insurrection designed to end British
rule of Ireland.
The most important aspect of the book is the
development of the love story between the two main characters. Doyler,
18, a patriotic supporter of Irish independence, and Jim, 16, a naïve
and endearing boy who thinks he may have a “vocation”
– a call to be a monk. The boys are known to each other when the story
opens, but become close through two series of events. The first is when
Doyler joins a boys’ marching band to which Jim belongs, and for which
they both play flute. The second is when Doyler
takes Jim to the Forty Foot “Gentlemen’s Bathing Area”. The boys make a
pact that Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and they will together make
the dangerous swim to the Muglins, a rocky island out in Sandycove Bay,
to plant a flag and claim it for Ireland.
Written as a “stream of consciousness”, the
narration changes fluidly throughout the novel, at times running all
over you like tide. The author has done beautiful things with this
style, which at first I found slightly hard going, but which
quickly became an internal voice in my own head. O’Neill really does a
masterful job of linking the message with the media – the watery,
swimming theme of the novel with the flowing, running, washing style of
narration. Like Jim, it does take the reader a
little while to find our stroke. By the time Doyler congratulates Jim
“You’re in the swim!”, so are we readers – and there’s no putting the
book down after that.
As Dave said in his book club announcement for
this novel, “…the realities of people with disabilities are worth a
look. The books aren’t ABOUT disability...” That’s certainly true of
“Two Boys”. Doyler walks with a limp, which he claims
is the result of an injury during a fight between policemen and
newsboys in Dublin. “He wouldn’t mind an odd limp getting it some way
useful like that.” In fact, his stepfather irreparably damaged him
during a beating administered with the leg of a broken
chair.
Doyler’s limp is most prominent during the first
third of the book. Well, I say “prominent” – in fact it’s never
prominent. As theme elements go, it doesn’t have much to do with the
character as we understand him. It does affect him, though,
and has shaped his life. At a time when men of his social class (his
family lives in a one-room shanty with an earthen floor, his mother
takes in washing, and his stepfather sells newspapers when he isn’t
falling down with drink and tuberculosis) would be
doing hard physical work in order to bring a wage home to the family,
his injury relegates him to being the “dungman’s monkey” – the boy who
carries a household’s sewage out in bucketfuls and takes it away in a
cart. “Vile job that. Vile smell. Murder on the
lungs, day in day out.” Beginning with Jim’s father, whose midden is
being emptied, the characters notice Doyler’s limp. He explains it a few
times – again the lie about being hit by a policeman while taking part
in a newsboys’ strike.
As the novel progresses, though, Doyler’s limp
is mentioned less and less often. Reading, you notice this omission
briefly, but the events of the novel, the love story and its
complications, take precedence and crowd the limp out of your
mind.
One incident quite late in the novel, at least a
few hundred pages after the last mention, someone sees Doyler from far
away and recognizes his halting gait. But in the meantime, it just isn’t
there.
As the novel moves forward towards the climax of
the Easter Rising, the reader gets very caught up in the relationships
between the characters. Their feelings for one another are strong, and
all the stronger for being culturally suppressed.
And it’s not about disability. Not at all.
Not even a little bit.
It’s a lyrical, rhythmic poem to love and
friendship. It’s about humans adapting, and figuring out their
relationships, changing what doesn’t work, and getting on with their
lives. It’s about people loving each other and making sacrifices
and finding joy. And if one of these people limps through his life’s
journey, that makes it all the more real.
So…I guess it is about disability, after all.
Quotes from “At Swim, Two Boys”, by Jamie O’Neill, Simon & Schuster UK, 2002
2 comments:
I read this book a long time ago and was suprised to see it picked for a disability book club. I found my old copy and read it again. This time I actually saw Doyer as a man with a disability. In fact I realized that the story would not be the same without his disability. I was impressed like you that that his disability wasn't spoken about much, but I thought, that it was always there. He was a disabled man, a gay man, a sexy man and a man passionate for the love of his country. He was all of those things. I can't believe I didn't see it first time around.
Shan, thank you for unfolding the book to us so beautifully. I haven't read it but your review makes me want to.
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