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Avg. Rating: 3.5
Unsettling
A disturbing desperation on almost every page. A 4 because one can't put this book down. The writing is superb.
Simone is 18, goes to be a camp counselor in Cape Cod from London. Has a love affair with Michael, 28. They are haunted everywhere they go by Calvin, a Vietnam vet friend of Michael's. With this unholy pair, the then naïve Simone is trapped inand a parasitic relationships. Skip to Simone age 38, now a district judge in civil court, two boys Joe and Matt and a husband who has recently brought the family to the brink of bankruptcy due to a failed architectural firm. Michael looks them up where they live in the northern marsh land. He's got pictures, his own failed life, and the belief that only Simone can save him. There seems no way out of doom. That must be the point.
A buried, but never lost, past
Haunting. Disturbing. Turbulent. Emotional.
True, the story of Simone is an allegory illustrating the inability to return to past times, lost times, times that can never be reclaimed. As we know from our personal life's experience, Dunmore reiterates to us all that our passage through time, with its people and experiences come and gone, is a truth we can neither deny nor change. However, the final two chapters illustrate the idea that our times past will never truely depart us; the past will accompany us, or at least our psyche and conscience, forever, even when the it seems (or should seem) dead and buried. Whether or not we let those memories haunt us or bless us with a fondness and sweetness depends on many, many things, one of which is how we choose to treat such memories. Do we bury them in secrecy and anonymity or do we acknowledge and cherish them for what they are, if they are so worthy? Dunmore alludes to the idea, and I tend to agree, that it depends largely on how the memories might relate to each of us individually: as they force themselves on us how do we choose to deal with them? Is a memory used against us as a weapon or force to hurt us only to then be discarded? Or is it used in friendship as a common thread, perhaps connecting the individual with a singular person in the world that will tie them together forever? Only we - the single individual - can decide.
An exploration
Dunmore does more than tell a story, she shares her outlook on life and how it changes, how we change, which isn't such a bad thing. The uneventful side of the novel, the descriptions of the mundane and ordinary life were nearly poetic, and remain that way throughout for all other characters, apart from the protagonist and her old lover. We have all had times in our lives where on the surface everything seem completely normal, and no-one realises the tremendous trauma and changes we are undergoing beneath the facade, neither during or after, not even those closest to us. Dunmore captures this superbly. This is not a story for its own sake, it's a philosophy, an allegory, an exploration of that idea. You can never go back.
Good Book, Bad Ending
I really enjoyed this book and was looking forward to a satisfying ending; unfortunately that was not to be. I was almost angry at the way it ended. Too bad books don't have alternate ending choices the way some movies do. I probably would not buy another book from this author for this reason alone.
On irreversible decisions - a story of passing time
"Your Blue-Eyed Boy" is a novel about time lost. You cannot regain the features of the body you once had, every single cell of your flesh underwent many a transformation, and more to the point, your mind has changed. Irreversibly. The past cannot be brought back, feelings, if they ever return, soon vanish under the thick layer of the present, the overwhelming mindset that had gripped you long ago and refuses to let you loose. Perhaps it's for the best, perhaps it's as it should be, for what would happen if we were able to reverse the flow of time? Would we gain as much as we think we would? The answer is yes, indeed we would come straight back to the world of lost impressions, in spite of our altered bodies. The irony is that such reversal is insane. Our ever rational mind revolts against that very idea, for everything we have now, would be lost. You cannot eat the cake and still have the cake, as they say. There is a price for everything in this world. Are you willing to make that irreversible move? The life of a thirty-eight years old judge changes when she receives a call, and then a letter, and then a visitor from America, a sequence of intrusions in her steady life consisting mainly of desperate trials to make ends meet. In an instant, she travels back in time to the era when she had been just eighteen years old, a stranger in a strange land of America, where she met her blue-eyed boy. At that point you think that what you're reading is a mere blackmail thriller, but if you do, then you're deeply mistaken. The book has a barebone storyline, yes, and I strongly advise you to persevere and read the novel to its end, should you happen to have a deeply ingrained aversion to thrillers and mysteries as yours truly. Thanks Helen for small favors, the book didn't turn out to be shallow. The novel is a touching, and yet cruel evaluation of the primary truths of life, sad as they are. There are difficult choices to be made, and there is the horror of passing time we have to reconcile ourselves with. There is infinitely much more to this book than it appears from the terse descriptions, or even from what it seems to be about when you read a couple of chapters. Your "Blue-Eyed Boy" is a novel apt to be largely misunderstood, that seems inevitable. I might also add that those of you who like uplifting stories should better stay away from all books of Helen Dunmore. You might not endure the contents in one piece.
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