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The Heart's Invisible Furies

John Boyne

Start date: November 15, 2023

Finish date: December 15, 2023

Discussion: Reading List

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Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
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What Members Thought

Feb 15, 2021 Jane rated it really liked it

Shelves: friendship, family-story, geographical, political, coming-of-age-novel, international-author, religion

I'm about a third of the way through this book. It moves quickly, but I have to admit, I'm frustrated by the one-dimensional characters. Many people love this book, and I expected I would. The opening is an out and out cruel rejection of the main character's mother from her church, her town in Cork, and her family. The event is Irish Catholics at their worst: violent, petty, hypocritical.

The book reads to me as a farce. The characters are beyond the pale. They feel one dimensional, at times, ri I'm about a third of the way through this book. It moves quickly, but I have to admit, I'm frustrated by the one-dimensional characters. Many people love this book, and I expected I would. The opening is an out and out cruel rejection of the main character's mother from her church, her town in Cork, and her family. The event is Irish Catholics at their worst: violent, petty, hypocritical.

The book reads to me as a farce. The characters are beyond the pale. They feel one dimensional, at times, ridiculous. I imagine Boyne is going for pathos or hilarity. But the hilarity is bawdy to the extreme, and the pathos is one note. I felt as though Boyne knew the kind of book he wanted to write and he manipulated the characters to fulfill that plan. He doesn't seem to discover anything about them as their lives unfold...so they discover nothing about themselves. Hopefully, this will change as the book progresses. It's harsh, sad, funny (in a certain way), the scene in the confessional was hilarious to me, who was a young Catholic girl in second grade making up my own "sins" to tell the priest when I "went to Confession." Give the characters space to breathe, want to beg Mr. Boyne. You've hinted what will happen. I'll skim along, and in a certain way, I'll enjoy it, but I find myself noting my reactions, which tend to be one "REALLY?" after another.

It did get better. I laughed out loud more and more often, and I began to love several of the characters. The coincidences were unnecessarily extreme (although occasionally funny). They seemed to be the book's motor. But the characters did begin to learn some things as the novel progresses. There are a few characters who are practically perfect, and others' whose flaws form the "slap your head" events. Given my feelings, why did I like immersing myself in this very long novel? I have to admit I did. The settings...Cork, Dublin, Amsterdam are all places I've been. They add a wonderful flavor. New York seems to exist simply because it's a setting for the biggest coincidence of the book. I don't think that's a spoiler. Enjoy, slap your own head, and get ready for a huge cast of memorable characters.

spoilers and reminders for book club:

Mr. Denby-Denby's critique of the Minister's behavior 218 and 219, Mrs. Goggin talks to Cyril, neither of them knowing they're related. 223-225, Mary Margaret's nastiness 229...I keep thinking, how is Cyril going to get out of this? Then he is arrested (Oh, right, Mary Margaret is killed by the explosion, laying under Nelson's nose. Her last words "You're a filthy article. Not my standard at all, before she dies) The Garda too is killed, but Cyril escapes. 234-37 Cyril is about to marry Alice, Julian's sister, and he knows he shouldn't. Give me a sign, God...and C's mother Mrs. Goggin comes up with his half brother and asks C.to watch him. Are you kidding me? 303 C. tells Julian he is in love with him just just before the wedding, and after he leaves the wedding he remembers Alice running screaming from Maude's office, he remembers having fallen in love with Julian. 320 C. is working in Amsterdam, where he meets Baastian and works at the Anne Frank museum. I loved this section. One of his co-workers(?) tells him he shouldn't lose touch with home. It's where all your memories were made. 324, C. meets Jack Smoot. 331Cyril and Bastiaan meet Ignac, a waif beaten and lying on their stoop. His father has taken him mother from his and used him as a pimp for men.
337 Ignac explains his life, He was born and lived in Ljubljana in Slovenia...which apparently didn't exist during the time he lived there. 377 My heart sank deeper than the Titanic on the ocean floor...Oh, my, where is the editor to take out the horrible simile. 393...Da-da-dd-dah... He meets Julian in the Aids ward where he is a volunteer. 407 Klaus Barbie, the butcher of Lyon. Ignac knows about him, even though his historian wife or girlfriend, Emily, doesn't ...more

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Sep 23, 2018 Dree rated it it was amazing

Shelves: england-uk-ireland, 2018-reads, lgbtq, 5-star-adult-fiction

I love big books! And family sagas! And this is both!

Boyne manages to trace so much of Ireland's history from the 1940s to the 21th century by looking at the life of one gay man. Cyril Avery, given for adoption by his unwed 17-year-old mother after her parish priest threw her out of town for being pregnant (yet he had children of his own and everyone knew it!). Her parents and brothers watched, and she never spoke to them again.

Raised by a tax cheat and an author, he struggles with being gay in ...more

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Nov 08, 2023 Victoria rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I couldn’t put it down. A beautifully written and deeply moving story that spans decades, weaving together the many complexities and tragedies of life. Boyne is an exceptional writer and storyteller.

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