Two young Polish men fell in love in the communist Poland, but the political gulf between them and the distorted society took them apart. In that world, there's no one with a happy ending.

Excerpts

· Some things cannot be erased through silence. Some people have that power over you, whether you like it or not. I begin to see that now. 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 the after.

· All this time I’d meant to ask you whether you loved her. It was the one thing that I regretted not asking. I realize now that it never mattered. 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. No one can be blamed for that. And the odds had been stacked against us from the start: we had no manual, no one to show us the way. Not one example of a happy couple made up of boys. How were we supposed to know what to do? Did we even believe that we deserved to get away with happiness?

碎碎念

第一本完整看完的英文小说 关键词：LGBT post-war 波兰 东欧 Protests

楔子的氛围特别忧伤，尤其那句“有些人和事让你迷失自我，他们如同断头台，将你的人生一分为二：曾经与后来，活的与死的。”虽然还不知道Narrator经历了什么但好像已经和他共情了。不过看完后发觉这部小说并非只有悲伤，就像毛毛鸟老师所比喻的“它同时是海、礁石、风暴和船”，反映了许多主题，每个角度都值得细品。

读第一章前不久在史料中了解到战后德、波、苏的国界变动，而主人公的成长环境，弗罗茨瓦夫，正是从德国划入波兰的城市之一，所以小说开头就给我留下了很深的印象。而这种历史感贯彻了整个故事，你不仅在见证两个政治光谱相悖的波兰青年的命运，同时也在见证战后波兰民族的命运。

关于人物和情节，我确实想知道Janusz究竟爱不爱Hania，如果不爱，那他和Ludwik同样可怜；如果爱，那Ludwik就更可怜了。不过结尾Ludwik认为这个问题已经不重要了，因为“你不能要求别人按你所期望的方式爱你”。