Experiencing Love

The novel’s central relationships, and the situations arising from those relationships, are defined by experiences of love. The most significant of these is the experience of first love, its explorations and joys, its certainties and confusions, as experienced by protagonist Simon and the young man he first knows as Blue but eventually comes to know as Bram. In this relationship and this experience, however, it is important to identify a paradox at the core of their relationship. In much the same way as characters in the classic film “The Shop Around the Corner” and the contemporary classic “You’ve Got Mail” get to know each other through correspondence rather than through face-to-face contact, Simon and Blue/Bram get to know each other first through email. They come to know, and care for, each other for who they are as people, without knowing who they...