The History of Luminous Motion

The History of Luminous Motion - Scott Bradfield

This book was amazing. The language gives the story a surreal, dream-like feeling. Everything is described so poetically. This is because the first person narrator is unreliable as hell, but that makes his perspective no less beautiful. Phillip's world has something just slightly off about it--besides the fact that he and his 12-year-old friends speak much more maturely than how children their age usually do. Phillip lives in a reality of his own that is often abstract and ethereal.

I love the way the book incorporates the themes of movement/motion, light, darkness, weight, and childhood. When it comes to light and luminosity, I liked the way it was a metaphor for Phillip's mother's bipolar disorder. She's "luminous" and up with lots of motion, followed by "seething" darkness and immobility. The way Phillip describes his various states of being using words like sound, gravity, mass, and chemistry make his world that much more abstract and surreal.

I feel for Phillip because we're similar in a lot of ways, right down to the effect of mental illness in our lives and loved ones. I want him to get what he wants, but I also know that he's a mentally ill child who doesn't know what's best for himself. Yet he's smart in a million other ways, and it's his unusually calm rationality that makes the book so interesting. The way these children straddle maturity and immaturity makes the story mythical and wickedly beautiful.