I went downstairs and threw a piece of trash and took it to the second-hand bookcase in the basement for a walk. "Dream Boy" just lay on the bookshelf, not standing neatly like the other books, it looked like someone just put it here and hadn't had time to sort it out.
The text in the book is in German, and I struggled to read it, so I had to open the dictionary and nibble hard. At first I thought it was a small and fresh story about a 16-year-old high school student crushing on the big boy next door, but the author's description of Nathan's family atmosphere and his avoidance of his father made me suspect that Nathan's original family has a dark secret.
Nathan and Roy finally broke the boundaries of the body in the temptation of far and near. The first official sex took place on their way home from a swim on Friday night. In the conservative South of the 1970s, Nathan was only 16 years old and already knew how to please Roy. The description in the book is "He knows what he does to make Roy happy, but he can't say where he learned it..." After the unpleasant end, Roy looks at him with anger and distrust , apparently Nathan must have had a similar experience. Under Roy's questioning, Nathan said "no one taught me to do this". Nathan, who was lost in the car, thought of his mother's explanation to him before going out: Don't let your dad run into him tonight.
It dawned on me instantly that not only was this a loveless one-child family, Nathan's father must have done terrible things to him, and his mother couldn't do anything about it. Nathan couldn't tell Roy, which led Roy to think he had had intimate contact with other people. It was on this night that Nathan's father made his first attempt to break into his room late at night. Nathan's mother appeared just in time to persuade his father to return to the master bedroom, but Nathan never dared to fall asleep again, and he sat by the window all night. Nathan left home early Saturday morning and spent the whole day in the cemetery doing homework and reading, only going back at lunchtime. After the sun went down, Nathan went home in the cold, and after dinner in the kitchen, went back to his room quietly, trying not to attract the attention of his father, who was watching TV in the living room. That night he set a trap against his father and hid in the corner of the room. Nathan's father tried to break into his room a second time and tripped over the string. Nathan escaped from the house and returned to the cemetery, where he hasn't spent the night in his room since. That night, he slept in the cemetery. When his parents left for church on Sunday, he slipped back into his room, grabbed clean socks and a coat, and "stealed" another quilt. Defend against the cold October winds with the help of cemetery steles and quilts. After night fell, he wrapped himself in a quilt until his body could no longer withstand the cold, so he hid in the school bus at midnight.
School days, at least during the day, he didn't need to hide from his father in the cemetery. After school, Roy invited him to his house at night, but Nathan couldn't accept it. He went home and ate dinner quickly. Before his father came home, he took the quilt and coat to the cemetery. Half-asleep, Roy spotted him and put him to sleep in the granary. For the next few days, he spent the day at school, and after school he either stayed in the cemetery or went back to his room to study, and then returned to the cemetery or the lake before his father returned. Go to Roy's granary to sleep after it's late at night. That lasted until Friday, and then Roy invited Nathan to go camping for the weekend. The plan apparently saved Nathan. His father doesn't work on weekends, and he can't hide at school. That meant he was spending the entire weekend in the wilderness.
The rest of the story is much the same as in the movie, but the movie omits many details. For example, Roy helped Nathan ask his mother to go camping on weekends. Nathan didn't have a sleeping bag, Roy said he had two, Nathan didn't have a schoolbag, and Roy said he had extra schoolbags at home. Then at Roy's house, Roy's mother prepared the supplies the two needed. Although the weight of the bag was not light, Nathan didn't feel heavy. For the first time, he felt that he was strong enough to carry the bag all the time and walk into the forest forever. Randy in the book is a little fat, a little different from the movie. After the first night in the tent, the book describes Roy as Nathan wakes up in the morning. "Roy buried his sleeping face in Nathan's hair, his wet lips pressed against Nathan's neck, his scent and his breath filled Nathan. Roy's legs were slanted over Nathan's, arms were Nathan's chest and his violent erection pressed against Nathan's thighs."
The next night in the spooky villa, Roy leaves the house angrily after Burke and Randy discover their secret. Nathan was left alone in a darkened room and then violently beaten by Burke, forced to give Burke oral sex and raped. There is no scene in the movie where Nathan is forced to give Burke oral sex, the book says "The void in Nathan's heart was whimpering. The wind blew through the crack in his heart, from the corner torn by his father, and ripped him to shreds. . Burke now finds the rip, the wound that will never heal. He's kneeled like this before, and the only thing he can do is let his head be swayed back and forth. Burke can seem to see the rip in Nathan's heart. The breach was left by his father and everyone could use it. He opened his mouth and Burke rushed in." As Burke raped Nathan, he slammed Nathan's head to the ground with his fist. By the time he finished, Nathan's face was covered in blood, and then he punched Nathan in the stomach. Nathan curled up, vomited, and ended up with the fatal blow with the stick, and slammed it twice. The violence in the book is much more tragic than in the movie. (Burke is a dead word on my side)
There are also two story developments in the book. Roy called the police and Nathan's father when he found Nathan's body the next day. Then it is written that Nathan woke up dragging a bloody head, he continued to explore the rooms in the villa, everything in the house was clearly recognizable in the sunlight, and he walked past the place where they had stayed the night before. room, looked at the courtyard, the promenade and the garden before setting foot on the way back. The description here seems to fit the ghost story Roy tells, where the man with the lost head keeps looking for his head in the house. Nathan washed off some of the blood in the creek, then went back the same way, recognizing the traces the four of them had left on their way camping, his and Roy's memories. Eventually he returned to the farm and ran into Roy, who had just come out of the church from his funeral, with tears in his eyes, with Evelyn beside him. Roy told Nathan that he didn't want to leave Nathan, he actually went back to the room that night, but didn't see Nathan. (Because Burke dragged Nathan into the storage room on the second floor) Roy said the pastor talked about bringing people back from the dead today. The book ends with: "In the distance they heard the voices of others looking for them in the woods. They got up and left, never looking back".
I think Nathan is actually dead. Roy fantasized about Nathan waking up and going home after hearing the priest say that the dead will come back to life. He'd end up leaving this place with Nathan, wherever he wanted, and Nathan could finally be with Roy. So the part about returning home after death, the author is still writing from Nathan's perspective, because that is actually Nathan's own wish.
The remake of the movie is not very good, and I can't find the Chinese version of the book. If you are interested, you can go to the English version. "Dream Boy" sounded particularly romantic, but ended up being tragic. I can't be happy for a week after watching it.
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