"We give and take love for one night, maybe a couple of weeks. But not longer than that. There is too much resentment. Too much hatred. You live for "We give and take love for one night, maybe a couple of weeks. But not longer than that. There is too much resentment. Too much hatred. You live for pleasure if you’re like this, and hope the police won’t stop you."
It’s always incredibly sad to reread a book you considered a favorite and only feel an iota of what it made you feel the first time round, especially when you got your whole book club to read it with the sole intent of being able to write a long, gushing review. It’s been months since I reread this, but I’ve been dragging my feet, resistant to writing this review, because I just don’t have that much to say this time around.
"This wasn't distraction or entertainment: here was a book that seemed to have been written for me, which lifted me up into its realm and united me with something that seemed to have been there all along and that I seemed to be a part of. It felt as if the words and the thoughts of the narrator--despite their agony, despite their pain--healed some of my agony, and my pain, simply by existing."
Having finally read Giovanni’s Room, the influence of Baldwin’s book is evident in Swimming in the Dark as we follow Ludwik as he discovers his sexuality through a copy of Giovanni’s Room, which was illegally smuggled into the authoritarian communist Poland. The romance that forms is primarily used as a tool to explore issues, primarily facing gay men, in Poland at the time, as Ludwik and Janusz have quite opposite views on their government. On my first read I felt incredibly moved by the inevitable tragedy of the romance, made clear, as in Giovanni’s Room, in the very first pages, and the exploration of what it meant to make the choice to leave everything you’ve ever known in a country you know you can no longer bear to be in. The exploration of finding oneself through literature, especially in a place where being yourself has dire consequences, was poignant and something that is relatable throughout every time.
During both of my reads, I loved the choice of second person narration, finding that the point of view enhanced the story. That being said, on my reread I found a lot of quotes to still hit, but the sum of the book fell a little flat, lacking the depth and exploration of these topics that I would have preferred and allowed me to connect a bit more, making me feel a bit displaced from the story. I still did enjoy this and loved the additions from Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book ClubService95 Book (scroll to June, that’s when it was the book).
We swam, fearless and free and invisible in the brilliant dark.” ...more