From the beautiful and comical opening paragraph to the haunting closing one, this is a book that is a joy to read and get lost in. "What cheer, eh?" says one of the characters in the book, he could be referring to the book itself in my opinion. This is a long book, with prose that is not always easy to get through, but it is well worth the effort. It took Jamie O'Neill 10 years to write this book and this effort and time can be seen in every sentence.
The story concerns a love that develops in 1915 and 1916 in Dublin, Ireland, between two boys, Jim and Doyler. Jim is a quiet, reticent, religious lad. He aims to please his father and do what is right. Doyler is a much more confident and aware lad who gradually brings Jim out of himself and teaches him to experience and love life to the full. Other characters include Mr. Mack, Jim's father, who is a very comical but likeable man who has notions of grandeur which he tries, unsuccessfully, to instil in his two sons. And then there is MacMurrough, I think the most honest and tragic character in the book. At times he is predatory (however he is not the only person in the book with this fault) and at times he is extremely loving and tender towards the boys. All the characters in this book have their faults but in MacMurrough they are more apparent. Maybe this is why he struggles so movingly with his nature and desires and failings. He is described in one scene as like a snail "who carries not his home but his prison with him".
The imagery in the book is often incredibly observant and beautifully written. For example "According to the 'Christian Politeness', the eyes were the windows of the soul: Doyler's rarely rested" and "they rounded the cushiony sand".
This book is very much a division of two moods and halves. The first half details the growing emotional and sexual development and awareness of the two boys. The second half details how this love reacts when confronted by historical and political developments in Dublin leading up to and during the 1916 Easter Rising. In a sense this division is also the division of the boys into youths, who are learning and getting to know their place in the world, and adults where they have responsibilities and duties which come from their place in it.
Themes in this books are numerous. One is the linking of political and amorous aspirations. Indeed the desire for freedom through revolution is paralleled by "the struggle ... for the heart, for its claim to stand in the light and cast a shadow its own in the sun". Another is loneliness and a sense of loss which comes with change as in " 'Was I truly your friend?' he asked. 'I believe I loved you. But I forget, you know.' -'You were. You did. You do'. So spake Scrotes, and having spoke he smole a smile and home to raven regions lonely stole".
From these samples it may seem that the book is a heavy read, but it is also packed with humorous passages which will have you laughing out loud.
In short this book is about the universal search for acceptance and meaning, love and happiness, shame and humour, human frailty and courage, history and duty, all told in a book which is beautiful, tragic, and tender. ( )

I don't know what to say about this unforgettable book: beautiful; magnificent; heart wrenching; breathtaking. Everything about it is wonderful and as soon as I finished it I wanted to start reading it all over again. What I can say is that in all the many many years I've been reading, this is by far the best book I have read and if I could never have another book then I'd be happy so long as I had this to read. ( )

The year is 1916, the place Dublin, and two young boys, one the son of a shopkeeper, the other a rough street boy. Watching over the two boys is a young self-centred man of the privileged class.

The two boys, Jim and Doyler were school friends before Doyler left school and moved away, and Doyler has a very soft spot for Jim. When Doyler returns and meets up again with Jim, still at school, he offers to teach him to swim out at the Forty Foot, a large rock where gentlemen bathe without the benefit of any costume. They make a pact that within the year they will swim to the distant Muglins Rock. At the same time Ireland is tied up in its troubles, with war raging in Europe and the rumblings of the battle for the countries independence, the two boys cannot remain unaffected.

But very much involved in the destiny of the two boys is Anthony MacMurrough, the nephew of a well to do Irish family, fresh out of a stint spent at his majesties pleasure in England for his illicit activities with another young man. Seemingly self centred and led by his inclinations, he strikes up a 'relationship' with Doyler, paying him for his services, and even trying to improve the young man, but Doyler is not to be one over, and even warns MacMurrough not to lay a finger on Jim. Yet in Doyler's absence MacMurrough watches over Jim, even makes sacrifices for him, and teaches his to swim.

Providing light relief to the proceedings is Jim's bumbling father, Mr Mack, the aspiring shopkeeper who somehow unfailing manages never to get it quite right.

At Swim Two Boys is a hauntingly beautiful story. It is told in turn from the perspective of the various main protagonists, and the style of writing changes accordingly. The relationship between the two boys is most touching; street wise Doyler longing for intimacy with the naive and innocent Jim, but unsure of Jim's inclinations. By contrast Doyler gives MacMurrough whatever he wants, and receives recompense in return. Yet through it all it is perhaps MacMurrough who grows the most, and his loyal attachment to Jim may be the making of him. A deep and most pleasurable read, highly recommended. ( )

This is a book that exploits all the clichés of bad Irish fiction - an historical novel set in Dublin in 1915-16 with passages of pastiche Joyce and Flann O'Brien, generous doses of nationalism, gun-running, name-dropping, abusive priests, grinding poverty, alcohol, supercilious English officers, the Easter rising, and plenty of wet weather. It's also a gay coming-of-age novel with lashings of Platonic dialogues, Reading-Gaolery, and Edward-Carpentry for beginners. And it's endlessly long. It should be absolutely awful, but O'Neill somehow or other manages to put these hackneyed bits together in original ways, and tells the whole thing with so much style and confidence that it is all rather fun in the end.

Probably the most interesting thing O'Neill does is to give the viewpoint to his Bloom-character, Mr Mack, at all the crucial moments in the story. Mack is Bloomish in his status at the bottom fringes of the lower middle class and his peculiarly isolated view of the world around him, but he's also a refugee from Kipling: born in the workhouse with only half a surname, adopted by the Regiment as a small boy and discharged on the eve of the Boer War as a quartermaster sergeant, his ideas formed by half a lifetime of the troopships and parade grounds of Empire. Once we realise that we are going to be seeing the most iconic moments in the history of Irish independence through the eyes of an Irishman who can't begin to understand why anyone would want to separate themselves from the British Empire, it is clear that this is going to be a novel that pokes a stick into received ideas about political and social revolutions to see what happens when you nudge them a bit. Sometimes the results of this process are interesting, occasionally trite (as in Doyler's quibbling about how the Sacred Band of Thebes actually functioned in practice), but it's something that needs to be done from time to time. ( )

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.

Pithy. Well-conceived, and handily crafted. ( )

In 2001 Jamie O’Neill’s novel, “At Swim, Two Boys,” was published to international acclaim. O’Neill was compared favorably with James Joyce and called the “next big thing” by critics around the globe. The story of Jim and Doyler, “At Swim, Two Boys” explores the complexity of two boys’ emerging love for each other against the backdrop of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising.

"The Lancers had charged here too, it was told. There was a dead horse down the way. All about the steps, flowers were strewn and trampled, where the flower-sellers’ stalls had been toppled. Barricades blocked the side streets, erected of particular things: bicycles jumbled and piled in one, hunks of marble for another, bales of newsprint—the work of disparate guilds whimsically chosen. Trams had been overturned. There were no trams running. No juice, the tram-man told him. Even trains: the Sinn Feiners had dug up the lines. And no polis. No polis anywhere. Withdrawn to barracks. Every last pigeon-hearted lily-livered chicken-gutted sneak of them. It was pandemonium. It was Donnybrook Fair. It was all ballyhooly let loose. (U.K. Edition, pages 563 – 564)"

Thus begins the move toward Irish independence, a long and bloody war of subversion, disagreeable compromise, and betrayal. But “At Swim, Two Boys” is as much a book about love as it is a book about revolution. In fact, descriptions of the uprising come only in the novel’s last chapters. It is the heady confusion of the boys’ affection for each other and the complex portrait of emerging Irish nationhood that spur the reader on.

Pegged at 200,000 words, “At Swim, Two Boys” is also a book made rich by the possibilities of the English language: animated spoken speech, diverging, difficult accents, lyrical writing interrupted by abrupt pivots from one point of view to another. These add a magnificent texture to O’Neill’s deftly rendered history, animating his questions about Irish culture through characters that embody the myriad walks of early twentieth century Irish life:

"There goes Mr. Mack, cock of the town. One foot up, the other foot down. The hell of a gent. With a tip of his hat here and a top of the morn there, tip-top, everything’s dandy. He’d bare his head to a lamppost.

"A Christian customer too. Designate the charity, any bazaar you choose, up sticks the bill in his shop. ‘One Shilling per Guinea Spent Here Will Aid the Belgian Refugees.’ ‘Comforts for the Troops in France.’ ‘Presentation Missions up the Limpopo.’ Choose me the cause, he’s a motto to milk it. See him of a Sunday. Ladies’ Mass by the sixpenny-door, stays on for the Stations for his tanner’s worth. Oh, on the up, that’s Mr. Mack, a Christian genteelery grocerly man. (U.K. Edition, page 3)"

In the years since its publication the critics’ compliments for “At Swim” have rippled through the culture. They inform book club picks, course syllabi, the recommendations of one friend to another. This, it seems, is true evidence of the novel’s success: these concentric circles; these expanding rings.

~Carlin M. Wragg, Editor, Open Loop Press

Anthony MacMurrough grooms and sexually abuses a number of boys, including Doyler, who is fifteen. MacMurrough is attracted to Jim Mack, another sixteen-year-old, who is the friend of Doyler. The boys develop a very close and loving relationship, supported by MacMurrough. ( )

We don't have an equivalent word to "virtuoso" for someone with superior skill with language, do we? Because that's what At Swim, Two Boys is: a virtuoso literary performance. O'Neill seems to understand and experience language on a higher level than the rest of us. He sees how sentences and words fit together, and he tweaks them into combinations startlingly both unexpected and inevitable. O'Neill's prose is all about sound, and his book is all about story. And that's what's so remarkable about At Swim, Two Boys--it is at once a pitch perfect exercise in masterful language art and an engaging story populated with the sorts of characters who I am certain I will find myself thinking about at odd moments for years. Language never trumps story and story never trumps language; they are finely intertwined, with each word, each sentence, each character, each event displaying the same care in their crafting. The comparison to Joyce feels inescapable, but O'Neill's prose resists being described as language play and there's nothing clever about the book. I felt when I was reading it that O'Neill had a story to tell and he told it in the way he knew how. And that way is beautiful. I never got the feeling, as I so often do with Joyce, that he was sniggering quietly to himself because he expected me not to get the joke--or even that there was a joke to begin with. ( )

Doyler: "I miss him, aye," he said. "He was pal o' me heart,so he was. I try not to think of him, only I can't get him off my mind. He's with me always day and night. I do see him places he's never been, in the middle of a crowd I see him. His face looks out from the top of a tram, a schoolboy wouldn't pass but I'm thinking it's him. I try to make him go away, for I'm a soldier now and I'm under orders. But he's always there and I'm desperate to hold him. I doubt I'm a man except he's by me."

Jim: “I’m just thinking that would be pleasant. To be reading, say, out of a book, and you to come up and touch me – my neck, say, or my knee – and I’d carry on reading, I might let a smile, no more, wouldn’t lose my place on the page. It would be pleasant to come to that. We’d come so close, do you see, that I wouldn’t be surprised out of myself every time you touched.” ( )

If ever there were a book completely unlike anything that I would usually enjoy reading, this would probably be it. That being said I am remarkably surprised that I can't say that I hated the story. Primarily this is a book about an Irish uprising against the British rule at the beginning of WWI (from what I gather, I may have gathered incorrectly). The story is told from the points of view of a number of different people from an Irish shopkeeper who supports the English regency, to an older woman who supports the revolution. In particular the story centers on two 16 year old boys from different classes and backgrounds who form an extraordinary friendship based on love and trust. One of the boys, Jim Mack, is the son of a shopkeeper, a scholarship student and prone to flights of fancy, easily carried outside himself by the words and actions of others. The second boy, Doyler is a citizens soldier in the making, dedicated to the freedom of the working class and self-appointed socialist. Together they make a pact to swim to the Muglins on Easter, a risky proposition which becomes the crux of their dedication to each other.

I picked up this story based on the description which basically indicated this is a coming of age type story of two boys (as I guess I have also, because this is the part of the book which touched me the most). However, there is much more to it. It is a story of politics and beliefs during wartime and of people trying to find a place for themselves and someone to care for them.

I found the book very hard to read, part of this is because I don't enjoy conflict and am not fond of war stories. However, it was the Irish dialect and slang itself that made the reading of the book so confusing to me, especially in the beginning. Not only were the characters words confusing, but the narrative and setting descriptions themselves were all written in this manner. It was hard work to get through, but certainly worth the effort. I came to care about the story and very much for the characters of Jim, Doyle, and especially MacMurrough. Despite his rocky and necessarily confused introduction into the tale, it was he I empathized with the most for his relationship with Jim and Doyle and for his own personal demons and tragedies.

Knowing for truth now what this book is I can honestly say had I understood what the book was about I would never have picked it up, but even still I cannot say at all that I regret having read it. It is one that will stay on my mind for some time to come, if not only for the sweet quote, "pal o' me heart" which will always remind me. ( )

This book is outstandingly excellent. The love story between the two boys is so tender and beautifully told. I was swept along with how their relationship developes into a tender love affair. The history and politics of Ireland was written in such a way that I felt encouraged to learn more. However, I did feel that maybe footnotes would have helped for those of us with little knowledge of Irish history.

I took longer than usual to read this book because I wanted to savour O'Neill's prose, but the last 100 or so pages just galloped away with me and left me breathless.

My heart was pounding when Jim and Doyler were swimming back from their island and had to be rescued. What a terrific piece of writing! Oh, and the ending - I actually had tears in my eyes, I wasn't expecting such an emotional finale.

A terrific book and one that will always have a place on my bookshelves. ( )

Very well written. Especially enjoyable for those interested in Irish history. The first chapter didn't lure me in, but after chapter two I was hooked. ( )

This very Irish novel was a sometimes frustrating, but ultimately wonderful book to read. The combination of a luscious prose style and interesting love story combined to provide for an enjoyable experience for this reader. The main characters came alive over the course of this long novel. However, both the difficulties I had with the dialect and confusion over the events (not being that expert in Irish history of the World War I era) detracted from my overall enjoyment. At the heart of the novel is the love of two boys, Jim and Doyler, for each other and, for me, the particularly moving relationship of Jim with his father, Mr. Mack. I was at another disadvantage in my ignorance of Catholicism which also impeded my appreciation of the story.
Nonetheless the book captured me as I'm sure it has other readers, for the passion of the characters and their language was truly inspiring. ( )

I enjoyed parts of this book very much. O'Neill does a brilliant job of unfolding the relationships between people and letting them grow and contract in a very natural way. I read several of the scenes (no, not just the racy ones) two or three times because they were so beautifully laid out.

It was a little hard to understand at times, not because of the dialect ('tis very Irish, so it is--if you like the lilt of Frank McCourt's 'Tis you'll love this) but because of the author's style. Incomplete sentences. Thoughts unfinished. Many words on the page, one after the other, the way words normally occur, and yet—. Sometimes describing thoughts and at other times, the scene. Confusing.

The book takes place in 1915-1916, just before the Easter Rising that resulted in the independence of the Republic of Ireland, and it puts the reader into the middle of that conflict. This is good if you like history, which I do. If you didn't I think it might pull you away from the story, trying to figure out which side is which and how it all connects. I never did quite figure out which side a couple of the characters were on--or maybe that was the point. And, well, I didn't love the ending, but that's personal preference--it was very well done, it just wasn't the exact ending I would have chosen. ( )

I rate books on my personal enjoyment of them, as you can go anywhere to find where to find whether this is supposed to be a Good Worthwhile Book from someone much better informed on such things, and it seems ludicrous to give a perfect score to something I had such trouble getting in to as far as the flow of the writing goes, but... I can bare no less ^_^;

Everyone says this book is hard to get in to for the first 50 pages because of the street slang and that darn crazy Irish-Gaelic syntax, and if you're smart (unlike me), and if you don't know much about the Easter Uprising of 1916, you might want to google it just a bit before starting. This might be a good idea, as while you can figure out what's going about in their history well enough by keeping your eyes open, most people would probably be preoccupied enough figuring out how to get in to the rhythm of the prose. ^^

The darndable thing was, I UNDERSTOOD well enough by the first 50, but I was still getting the feeling I was missing a lot of the subtleties that are often what make writing awesome, and everything was losing a lot of the impact it should have had, just because I still felt an awful lot like I was reading a foreign language I had studied plenty but hadn't been around real natives speakers enough yet. But what I was understanding fully was still enjoyable, so I kept reading, feeling mildly to sometimes rather decidedly disgruntled.

...And then somewhere near the end of the book I looked back and said, "...Hey, I could have sworn a long time ago this was a little hard to understand or something. ...Huh. Oh well." *keeps reading even though she ought to have slept and be up in 3 hours*

As for the rest of it, I can't really praise its awesomeness any better than everyone else already has to death, so meh. Especially without making it sound like sentimental mush. Once I stopped having trouble with it, the writing was gorgeous. For another interesting note about my stupidity, this book is obviously going to end in tragedy. It's obvious from the plot description, it's obvious from comments you read about it, it's obvious from the review quotes riddled all over the book. I was fully aware of this when I started, and was rather annoyed as whenever I've got a book I know will end sadly, I can't help but every time something good happens in it go, 'Well, that's nice and all, but we all know none of this will matter in the end. *eye roll*' ...And then the fact just kind of sunk in to the back of my mind, never to surface again till (quite honestly) A FEW PARAGRAPHS before tragedy struck ^_^; Not even the awful situation rising, not even the portentous dialogue would break through my wonderful shelled brains.

Which is also to say, this book isn't surrounded by an unbearably, suffocating air of DOOOOOOM. It's rather happy, friendly, funny, and almost even kind of up-beat at times. ...Except for all The Sad in the end. So very sad. :( ...Even so, there's really no calling for forgetting this book ends with tragedy. I'm just really dumb like that. ...Not that I'm not happy I was able to enjoy the nicer parts of the book without being preoccupied with that ^_^ Go me!

And, on a random note, though I was sure I would hate McMurrough reading the summaries, and was annoyed when I found out he was supposed to be one of the three main characters, I just kind of felt sorry for him when I first read his parts. Anyway, I have now decided he will be my husband. Besides the whole fictional character from Ireland who lived during WWI, once imprisoned in England for being an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort, I think he will be just perfect. Lovely, lovely man ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2007/05... ( )

excellent writing, a magnificent collection of words and a great story. ( )

A phenomenal book, easily that year's best. Fans of Joyce's Ulysses will have a blast. ( )

Heavy duty reading, helpful if you know something about Irish history and the Easter Rebellion, but behind the history is a moving story of the growing friendship and love of two friends from completely different cultures and the people in their lives who observe their growing relationship. Ultimately rewarding, but slow going. ( )

This book left me breathless. The setting is vivid and the descriptions are almost tactile. I love the way O'Neill so subtly brings Jim's and Doyler's feelings to light - it's quiet, but no less powerful for that. The language is captivating and has a certain pace and lilt that made it effortless reading. Definitely a favorite. ( )

The best book I have read in a long time. ( )

What immediately struck me in this novel is that it manages to be a novel about gays without being a gay novel, with all the dubious implications that term has. Though describing something as romantic and dramatic as a gay relationship between two Irish boys over the backdrop of the Easter Rising, it never becomes trite, cheap or overwrought. Never do any of the gay characters appear as overly sexualized, implausibly innocent or a combination of both, as is so often the case with books about young gay boys. Never is the real attitude of the times towards homosexuality forgotten, but at the same time the author, Jamie O'Neill, never paints any of the straight people in a less realistic or more negative light than any of the "gay" people in the book either. These are great accomplishments compared to the veritable flood of mediocre works about homosexual relations out at this moment.

The book's style is excellent. The historically probable world-views of the very different people that make up the world of "At Swim, Two Boys" are rendered faithfully and realistically without becoming overly psychologizing, as many modern novels are. The interaction between the characters and the general theme of the plot appears as an odd mixture of Thomas Mann and Charles Dickens, but in modern style (though using the language of the times, and paying great attention to it too!) and without the grandeur of either. O'Neill masterfully creates suspense with small changes in plot, making each individual character's actions appear as gripping and unpredictable, without the reader noticing that purely factually, not much happens.

The only downside to the book is its length (it could have been cut just a bit, especially at the start) and the first parts that are seen from the view of Anthony MacMurrough, a dandy returned from Britain to Ireland with a shady past. His character seems somewhat of a historical nod to Oscar Wilde, but his arrogant and rather overdone musings seem at first to be a break in style with the other characters and are rather uninteresting to read. Fortunately, he undergoes a series of events that change his view on things and in the end he is redeemed, making him all the more rewarding as a character.

To summarize, the book is a solid and exciting historical novel which will be especially appealing to (male) gay readers, but certainly guaranteed to interest anyone else as well. To leave the plot exciting (it is too easily betrayed), I haven't given any extra information on the background, and other reviewers before me have done this amply anyway.
The title is incidentally a reference to the famous novel "At Swim, Two Birds" by Flann O'Brien. ( )

Highly recommended. This is my favorite queer novel of the Oughts so far. What I love even more is its mash-up with revolutionary fiction and Dickensian characters. The characters: like the father and Aunt of the main character are hilarious and so believable. This book broke my heart and even though its pretty long I didn't want it to end. ( )

The title gives a hint as to what is a somtimes odd version of English, at least for those of use on this side of the "pond" (in the U.S.). Consequently, with all the struggle to make sense out of the language, I was not particularly excited about what is afterall, another gay coming of age story. Can we have something different for a change? We are not all adolescent gay boys! ( )