"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
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
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. New. Seller Inventory # 27-09001
Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. In shrink wrap. Seller Inventory # 100-19970
Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. In shrink wrap. Seller Inventory # 100-33432
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. First Edition. Set against the backdrop of Dublin in 1915, a powerful epic of love, history, and culture revisits a crucial time in Irish history by following two young boys, who meet at the local swimming hole, as they plan a challenging swim to an island in Dublin Bay the following Easter, but their plans coincide with the Easter uprising--a historic rebellion that forever changes Ireland and the lives of these two boys. 40,000 first printing. Seller Inventory # DADAX0743222946
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Brand New Copy. Seller Inventory # BBB_new0743222946
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0743222946
Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. 1.85. Seller Inventory # 0743222946-2-1
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published 1.85. Seller Inventory # 353-0743222946-new
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0743222946
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0743222946