"The Law Of Dreams" by Peter Behrens

The Law of Dreams is the story of Fergus O’Brien, a farm boy from Ireland, who struggles through the Great Famine of 1847. Fergus and his family live and work on a potato farm and have been for many years before. Fergus’s family are tenants who make a living on their landlord, Mr. Carmichael’s land. Phoebe Carmichael, Mr. Carmichael’s daughter is Fergus’s friend and, unbeknownst to Phoebe, the apple of his eye. Everything seemed to be going fine for the with the exception of Fergus’s cousin and his friends bullying Fergus on occasion. Then the mold came followed by the famine. Since the Carmichael family relied on either potatoes or money from their tenants when the mold came no one could pay for their land so the Carmichaels went from door to door either kicking the families out or burning them out of house and home. Fergus's siblings and parents are burned alive in their beds, too weak with hunger to escape. Only Fergus survives, and, in what's considered a great act of charity, he's deposited in a workhouse, where he's immediately stripped, shaved and sprayed with acid to kill the lice. From now on Fergus’s life turns dire. He realizes that everyone at the workhouse will either starve or die of the fever. Fergus is forced to steal pennies and coins from recently deceased friends just to get by. In a daring escape Fergus manages to flee from the workhouse and join a band of thieves who’s base of operation is a whorehouse. From there he moves on to work on the rail roads and dreams of leaving Ireland for America, which he still only dreams of.


Some themes in The Law Of Dreams were hunger, power, fear, and loneliness. Hunger from the famine at the time, power from the constant power struggle between characters and people of the time, fear from Fergus’s constant confrontation of things that would scare or scar any normal human but Fergus stays strong, and loneliness from Fergus’s perpetual moving around and not having time to have friends. The author, Peter Behrens (who is a family friend), uses the third person in his novel and it works quite effectively. He also uses language that really is just perfect for what he’s trying to convey. Eg "The world, latent; a gun loaded with chance and mistakes.", “You could eat pain and come out alive. It was a silent meal. You could eat pain even find a relish. You ate unhurried. You made certain to taste every bite. You could eat pain; it wouldn’t kill you.” Every chapter works perfectly with each other with no overlap or thoughts like, “wait shouldn’t this have happened?” The book was similar to Great Expectations. It was a story about a young boy who is in love with a better off girl and who goes through a hard time only to be a taken in by a gentle care taker. I would absolutely recommend this book to others if they like a sad tale. It is a fairly easy read but its heavy, heavy material. "The world, latent; a gun loaded with chance and mistakes." Is a metaphor saying the hidden world is always a dangerous place to be. “You could eat pain and come out alive. It was a silent meal. You could eat pain even find a relish. You ate unhurried. You made certain to taste every bite. You could eat pain; it wouldn’t kill you.” Is a metaphor saying pain is a meal that we all at one point have to eat and it’s never fun to take down.