書名 : Swimming in the Dark
作者 : Tomasz Jedrowski
出版年 : 2020
類型 : 文學小說、LGBTQ+
「某些人、某些事會讓人失去思緒，就像斷頭台一般，將你的生活就此分割，分成死亡與存活；在此之前與往後的日子。」
設定在7、80年代的共產政權統治下的波蘭，書中呈現了在動亂不安下的同志成長愛情故事，我們跟著主角Ludwik，看著他從膽怯地探索自己的性向到與另一個男生Janusz展開的情誼，但在政治對立與文化壓力下，兩人的感情也面對了許多困難。
我覺得它與Call Me By Your Name等同志文學作品給讀者有些類似的感受，也常與相關的作品並列提及(像Cleanness by Garth Greenwell)，但同時有著自己傑出的特色，我想喜愛這些作品的人應該也不會對這本失望。Swimming in the Dark讓我最欣賞的一點是書本的獨特文化背景與頗強烈的政治元素，這兩點不是我大部分讀的書中常見的題材，所以對我而言算是滿新鮮的(也讓我在一開始有點畏懼的XD)。我認為作者將這些背景與書中的角色感情融合的很好，在追尋自己與愛情連結的同時，對自由的嚮往以及抵抗極權的統治也是書中一大重點，在動亂時代的背景下更襯托出兩人之間感情的糾結。
我覺得最適合形容這本書的詞是「溫柔」，整本書的架構就像是主角Ludwik在向自己深愛的Janusz重述自己的過往，包含兩人相識的一切，所以每一句話都像是在對讀者傾訴一般。我自己特別喜歡這樣的視角口吻，在讀的過程，透過作者美麗的字句，主角的情緒一絲不掛地呈現，自己很容易就陷入同樣的歡愉、渴望、惆悵或糾結。
主角Ludwik也是一名熱愛文學的男生，其中有一本經典的同志文學作品James Baldwin的Giovanni's Room，不僅是為他帶來重大的影響，更可以說是貫串整本小說的軸心之一。那種從文學作品中看到-或甚至說體悟-自己的一部分的感受，不僅非常地令人感動有時更是足以改變一生的，我很能夠感同身受。
這本書的文字也絕對值得一提，在一開始我誤以為這本書是翻譯作品，但後來在看到一些評論才發現作者本人是出生於德國，父母為波蘭人，而他自己使用英文寫作，知道這點更讓我對書中優美的字句感到驚艷。他的文字整體有一種優雅而深刻的感受，就好像一支舞曲，不僅外表華美，更滿載了情緒。
摘句
"Because you were right when you said that people can’t always give us what we want from them; that you can’t ask them to love you the way you want."
"Some people, some events make you lose your head. They’re like guillotines, cutting your life in two, the dead and the alive, the before and after."
"This is how I lived back then – through books. I locked myself into their stories, dreamt of their characters at night, pretended to be them. They were my armour against the hard edges of reality. I carried them with me wherever I went, like a talisman in my pocket, thinking of them as almost more real than the people around me, who spoke and lived in denial, destined, I thought, to never do anything worth recounting."
"Selfish. Growing into yourself is nothing but that."
"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."
"No matter what happens in the world, however brutal or dystopian a thing, not all is lost if there are people out there risking themselves to document it. Little sparks cause fires too."
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