John Boyne's Latest Exploration: Interwoven Tales of Pain

Young Freya spends time with her distracted mother in Cornwall when she comes across 14-year-old twins. "The only thing better than being aware of a secret," they tell her, "comes from possessing one of your own." In the time that follow, they violate her, then inter her while living, blend of nervousness and irritation passing across their faces as they eventually free her from her makeshift coffin.

This might have stood as the shocking centrepiece of a novel, but it's only one of multiple horrific events in The Elements, which collects four novelettes – released separately between 2023 and 2025 – in which characters navigate past trauma and try to discover peace in the contemporary moment.

Debated Context and Subject Exploration

The book's publication has been clouded by the presence of Earth, the second novella, on the candidate list for a notable LGBTQ+ writing prize. In August, most other contenders dropped out in protest at the author's gender-critical views – and this year's prize has now been terminated.

Debate of LGBTQ+ matters is absent from The Elements, although the author explores plenty of big issues. LGBTQ+ discrimination, the impact of conventional and digital platforms, caregiver abandonment and sexual violence are all examined.

Multiple Narratives of Suffering

• In Water, a mourning woman named Willow transfers to a isolated Irish island after her husband is jailed for terrible crimes.
• In Earth, Evan is a footballer on court case as an accessory to rape.
• In Fire, the adult Freya manages retaliation with her work as a medical professional.
• In Air, a dad flies to a memorial service with his young son, and ponders how much to reveal about his family's history.

Trauma is accumulated upon pain as damaged survivors seem fated to encounter each other continuously for eternity

Linked Narratives

Links multiply. We originally see Evan as a boy trying to leave the island of Water. His trial's group contains the Freya who returns in Fire. Aaron, the father from Air, collaborates with Freya and has a child with Willow's daughter. Supporting characters from one narrative resurface in homes, bars or judicial venues in another.

These narrative elements may sound tangled, but the author understands how to power a narrative – his earlier acclaimed Holocaust drama has sold numerous units, and he has been translated into many languages. His straightforward prose shines with suspenseful hooks: "after all, a doctor in the burns unit should understand more than to toy with fire"; "the primary step I do when I come to the island is change my name".

Character Portrayal and Storytelling Strength

Characters are portrayed in concise, powerful lines: the compassionate Nigerian priest, the troubled pub landlord, the daughter at struggle with her mother. Some scenes ring with tragic power or observational humour: a boy is punched by his father after having an accident at a football match; a prejudiced island mother and her Dublin-raised neighbour trade barbs over cups of watery tea.

The author's talent of bringing you wholeheartedly into each narrative gives the return of a character or plot strand from an prior story a genuine frisson, for the opening times at least. Yet the aggregate effect of it all is dulling, and at times practically comic: pain is piled on trauma, accident on coincidence in a grim farce in which damaged survivors seem doomed to encounter each other repeatedly for all time.

Conceptual Complexity and Final Assessment

If this sounds different from life and resembling purgatory, that is part of the author's point. These wounded people are weighed down by the crimes they have experienced, stuck in cycles of thought and behavior that agitate and descend and may in turn damage others. The author has discussed about the effect of his individual experiences of harm and he portrays with sympathy the way his characters navigate this perilous landscape, reaching out for solutions – seclusion, frigid water immersion, reconciliation or refreshing honesty – that might bring illumination.

The book's "elemental" structure isn't extremely informative, while the rapid pace means the discussion of social issues or digital platforms is primarily shallow. But while The Elements is a imperfect work, it's also a thoroughly accessible, victim-focused epic: a welcome riposte to the usual obsession on authorities and perpetrators. The author demonstrates how pain can affect lives and generations, and how duration and tenderness can soften its reverberations.