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Boy Meets Girl
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Boy Swallows Universe, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Goodness, Masculinity, and Coming of Age
Trauma, Coping, and Healing
Family, Love, and Mentorship
Storytelling and Justice
Money, Suburbia, and Criminality
Summary
Analysis
From behind a van, Eli watches August fill the street outside Number 5 Lancelot Street—Dad’s house—with water to create a moon pool. When it’s full, August grabs an old golf club and taps the middle of the pool with it. He then notices Eli and, in the air, writes that he’s sorry. Eli asks him to say it instead. August says cryptically that he doesn’t talk because he’d say things that would scare people, and then he’d be taken away and couldn’t protect Eli. Confused, Eli says he feels like he’s going crazy. August says Eli isn’t crazy, he’s just special.
Eli isn’t terribly angry with August, but he does feel like his brother betrayed him. Getting August to voice his apology rather than write it is how Eli asks August to make things right. However, now that August is speaking—and saying more than he ever did with his finger—it becomes even harder for Eli to understand his brother. The significance of the moon pool is still a mystery to everyone but August, and it’s not yet clear what August would say that would result in him being taken away.
Themes
Then, August says he might start talking now. He’ll start by talking to Eli, but he realizes that people say unnecessary things. For instance, Lyle said a lot of useless things; Lyle’s arm around August’s shoulders said more than anything. He also says that before Tytus took Lyle away, Lyle wrote to August where the drugs were. But August isn’t going to tell Eli where they are, since Lyle also told August to protect Eli. Eli tells August about his adventures and what the man on the red telephone said about Mum. Just then, a howl comes from the house. August says it’s Dad singing to Mum—he curses her during his first four drinks and sings to her during the next four. Eli says Dad will take them to see Mum, but August looks unconvinced.
Eli and August start to strengthen their relationship when August suggests that he might speak, but only to Eli. This helps Eli feel special and cared for. However, August also makes Eli feel childish and immature when he insists that he won’t tell Eli where Lyle’s drug stash is. Lyle trusted August with important adult information, and August is being vigilant about ensuring that Eli stays an innocent kid for as long as possible. Dad’s entry into the story is concerning: he’s clearly still not over Mum after a decade or so apart, though August’s unconvinced look suggests that Dad is also in no hurry to see Mum.
Themes
The howling continues as August leads Eli into the house. The living room walls are riddled with holes, some of them patched. Dad doesn’t notice the boys; he’s in the corner in a cloud of cigarette smoke, singing along with The Doors. There’s an empty plastic cup and a wine bladder next to him. Dad is thin with a beer belly; he looks 50, though he’s probably only 40. Finally, Dad notices Eli. Eli says hi, and then before he knows what’s going on, Dad grabs an axe handle and runs at Eli, cursing. August punches Dad before he can hit Eli, knocking Dad unconscious. Then, August says Dad is pleasant when he’s sober.
August’s nonchalant attitude about Dad’s behavior suggests that Dad’s angry, drunken outburst is normal. August hasn’t been living with Dad long, but he’s already familiar with Dad’s habits while drunk. This suggests that Eli and August may not experience the support and stability at Dad’s house that they had with Mum and Lyle. And even though Dad doesn’t seem to be using illegal drugs, this doesn’t guarantee that his home is “normal” as Eli has defined it—perhaps, Eli is learning, nobody is as normal as he expects them to be.
Themes
Eli isn’t hungry, so August leads his brother to his bedroom. August points out Dad’s room, the bathroom, and the library, which is a room filled with a mountain of paperbacks. Eli is shocked, but August says Dad doesn’t do anything but read and drink. Eli deems this “fucked up,” and August agrees. August shows Eli to the bathroom, but they both recoil when they open the door and see a puddle of Dad’s urine on the floor. Eli urinates in the toilet from the hall.
Neither Eli nor August are used to an adult like Dad, who seems to do little with his life aside from getting drunk and making a mess of his own home. It’s not entirely clear what Eli expected, either: he’s thought that Dad isn’t a good person for some time now, and everything August is saying seems to confirm Eli’s initial assessment.
Themes
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When Eli is finished in the bathroom, August grabs a sheet and towel and rolls the towel up into a pillow for Eli. August tells Eli that everything will be alright; “It gets good.” The man on the phone said so. Eli thinks he’s not crazy, he’s just tired, as August turns the light off. Eli thinks of how Slim always said that the darkness in Black Peter wasn’t actually darkness; it was just “deep space.” Eli asks if August thinks Lyle is still alive. August asks Eli what he thinks. Eli asks if August remembers what Lyle always said when his favorite rugby team was going to lose but he didn’t want to say so. August says he remembers and says he wrote it in the air. Eli says that’s perfect—he doesn’t want to hear it or say it.
August expects Eli to believe him and take him seriously when he parrots what the man on the phone told him about things getting good. This is his power as a big brother: he can tell Eli things like this, and Eli mostly believes him. As the boys discuss Lyle, it becomes clear that although they’re not willing to say it outright, they believe Lyle is dead. Darren’s stories about Iwan Krol seem to support their assessment. And mentioning (but not quoting) what Lyle would say about his losing rugby team is a fitting way for Eli and August to memorialize the man they loved.
Themes
Then, August asks if Eli remembers when they ate too many mulberries. Eli remembers: Slim was watching them and didn’t realize the boys had eaten too many mulberries until Eli vomited purple. Then, as he watched the boys pick mulberries for a pie, he told them a story about a boy who had the universe in his mouth. The boy had been picking mulberries off the ground and stuffing them into his mouth—and then he started eating dirt as well. Other boys fetched the boy’s mother, and she made him open his mouth. Inside, she saw whole worlds. Slim said that was “the boy with all the answers.”
Mulberries have long been associated with wisdom. The fact that Eli vomits the mulberries suggests, perhaps, that he’s not the wise one here—August is. August is more like the boy in the story, who’s able to take mulberries and other things in, and then somehow make those things beautiful and meaningful. Slim seems to make this connection when he calls this boy the one “with all the answers,” which is something he’s also called August before.
Themes
Eli observes that the boy in the story had a world inside him, and August says the boy swallowed the universe. Then, Eli asks who the man is on the red telephone. August pauses, writes it in the air, and then with prodding, says it out loud: he is the man on the phone.
August’s insistence that he’s the man on the telephone suggests August is either imagining things, or that there’s a supernatural element to the novel. Eli doesn’t make any judgments about it now, though, so August’s meaning remains a mystery.
Themes
