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Doyle, one of my favorite authors, nails the stream-of-consciousness of a young boy, Paddy Clarke of the title. While not exactly spelled out, I think Paddy, our narrator, is about 8 when the book starts and 10 when it finishes. He and his mate Kevin are the defacto leaders of a band of boys who rove a developing subdivision in late 1960's Ireland, wreaking havoc on themselves and anyone who might be in their way. I kept picturing the antics of my two younger brothers in our developing subdivision in Central Illinois. My guy told me of the antics of his pals in a developing subdivision west of Ft Worth and we laughed until we cried! Young boy antics are universal and, believe me, Paddy and his friends were inventive! But that shouldn't be taken as a criticism. A Portrait of the Artist is a fine book after all and to have written something that approaches so close is damn impressive. Nor should it be taken to suggest that Doyle slavishly adheres to the Joyce model. There's no doubting that he has his own vision and take. The 10-year-old narrator points out all sorts of details that belong to him alone. He tells us about the varnish at the front of the prefab buildings in his school that "was all flaky because of the sun: you could peel it off". He tells us all about Sinbad, his brother, and what brotherhood means to him, and how strange it can be to be so close and so removed – especially when he does odd things like twirl a rodent around by its tail: "I stood near Sinbad; he was my brother and he was holding a dead rat in his hand." He shows us about the daft thoughts running through his head: "Confucius he say, go to bed with itchy hole, wake up in the morning with smelly finger." He talks us through the process of puking up Angel Delight, strawberry and milk and sums up the after effect wonderfully: "I felt better, sturdier." This is definitely Paddy Clarke's world, not Stephen Dedalus's. Doyle brings it to life vividly and with infectious humour. And I did forget to mention the word cute. That should certainly be mentioned. It's all so cute, and it's about children. Wonderful. [And I know this might sound flat.:] Paddy is trying to figure out the world, whether it is the war in the newspaper headlines or the changes in his neighborhood. Things are changing, especially in his home. He realizes his parents' arguments might evolve into a change that terrifies him. If only he can get them to stop "distract them, make them laugh - anything". He tries staying awake all night because if he could, it would prevent their fighting. Perhaps if he stood still."If I moved it would start up again, I was allowed to breathe, that was all." He loves his Mum. He loves his Da. Why don't they love each other?
Indeed Bookers are bestowed upon (like the Pulitzers here in the U.S.) to novels that exemplify the experience of being European (American for a Pulitzer). This hits several targets to become a well-loved book, but it still remains a coming-of-age story of an Irish imp—a precocious, slightly evil ten year old boy. Who do we side with in this account of playground cruelty & cute impressions? With the bully? The victim? In this case, I would say... neither. Roddy Doyle is perhaps the novelist most closely identified with the emergence of Ireland as a modern European nation. This aside, this is a rather wonderful book. It's told from the point of view of the titular Paddy Clark, a young lad whose parents are in the process of splitting up. In an attempt to capture the way a young boy's mind works, the author has written this in a kind of stream-of-consciousness monologue (picture 'On the Road' if Kerouac had been seven years old and Irish) which mostly works very well, although I can see how it might put people off who are used to a more traditional narrative style. Paddy Clarke an Irish kid living in the 1960's enjoys running around the streets of Barrytown with his friends. They start fires, write their names in wet cement, bother older women, and enjoy many other troubling things.I wanted to read this after reading my friend Julie’s review for this. As she says about this book “there isn't one out there that captures a childhood, or the perspective from a 10-year-old child, better than this one.” I started writing Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha in February 1991, a few weeks after the birth of my first child. I'd finished The Van, my third novel, the previous November and I remember being told, more than once, that it was the last book I'd write for a long time, until after the baby, and the other babies, had been fattened and educated. They were joking - I think - the friends who announced my retirement. But it worried me. I was a teacher, and now I was a father. But the other definition I'd only been getting the hang of, novelist, was being nudged aside, becoming a hobby or a memory. So, I started Paddy Clarke to prove to myself that I could - that it was permitted. That there was still room in my life for writing.
My stomach hurt through many of these stream of consciousness passages of bullying and taunting and I was sure an innocent animal would die at the hands of these brats at some point. This is a childhood set in Ireland, but these are the childhoods that many of us (before, say 1985) experienced in our own lower and middle class neighborhoods. The childhoods where the parents had little involvement, the kids were a grubby, rude bunch, and trouble could be drummed up on a dime. When the fighting between his parents does not stop, Paddy pulls into himself. His pranks become fewer and farther between. He seeks out the comfort and emotional support of Sinbad. Sinbad has also heard the fighting at night, and has pulled into himself and won't let Paddy in. Sinbad chooses to try and dismiss the fighting as anything other than what it really is. Paddy resents his ability to dismiss it. Doyle töredezett prózája pazarul adja vissza a gyermekkor elemi bizonytalanságát, azt az érzést, hogy érthetetlen erők hajigálnak minket jobbra-balra, mi meg félünk, és mivel félünk, odacsapunk. Keresünk valakit, aki nálunk gyengébb - annak. Aztán van, hogy mi vagyunk a gyengék (hisz gyerekek vagyunk), akkor nekünk csapnak oda. Mást se szeretnénk, csak felnőni, mert a felnőttek nagyok és erősek, ők a pillanat urai. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is a story about an Irish lad, named Paddy Clarke, growing up in the 1960's. He runs around with a gang of friends who enjoy terrorizing the streets of Barrytown. He and his friends like to start fires, write their names in wet cement, harass elderly ladies, and wreak havoc on the neighborhood bushes.
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On the down side, the narrative voice is so unpretentious that it verges on the monotonous, and for most of the book Paddy is just not a very likeable protagonist. It is told in a somewhat random stream of consciousness which perhaps reflects the way childhood memories work. One day, Kevin and Paddy had a fight after school/ In this moment, Paddy realizes that life changes and that he was not going to be the same person he was some time ago. After the fight, he lost his best friend and is the one being bullied. Paddy gets better grades in class and is moved to the "smart" row of the classroom. This useful resource is a sample Section A text and questions in the style of AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1. The resource enables students to practice questions that might potentially appear on Paper 1 to build familiarity and confidence with the format and question type.
The novel, chronicling Paddy's internal journey towards maturity, is a bildungsroman, as it centres upon the main character's development. Paddy's growing up is painfully bitter. While the beginning of the book is filled with playful antics, the growing antagonism between his parents and the breaking up of their marriage are evident as the novel moves on. Paddy does not choose his "journey of enlightenment and maturity" [ citation needed]; rather, he is robbed of it when his parents become estranged from one another. I don't find any such compelling reason in this book. I don't find anything compelling at all in this book, as a matter of fact. Somehow, Doyle brings all these sides of childhood to life, the pain, the joy, the dreams of childhood years looking to those years of adulthood where we believe we can choose our own destiny with the limitations of childhood removed, and leave behind the memories that haunt us.The way Doyle captures the spirit of childhood is spot-on, and through its sequence of vignettes the novel paints a vivid picture of Ireland somewhere around the middle of last Century. The narrative voice feels authentic, and avoids many of the common cliches and tropes of child narrators, like false innocence, or using the child to emotionally manipulate the reader. It is an intelligent perspective. There is a kind of raw humanity at play in these children, untempered by the refinements of adulthood. They are sharp, ruthless, and amoral. Boy speak consists of short bursts of meaningless, often puerile and obviously juvenile exchanges, and even though there were some mildly funny moments, it was all a bit much for me. It started off okay, but I grew tired if it half-way through. I just didn’t want to hang around with 10-year-old boys that much!! Paddy is right beside Kevin in harassing the other boys until he realizes strange things are going on between his parents. He notices them arguing, and his first reaction is to fix it himself and make his parents happy. He works extra long and hard on his spelling so that he can remain in the kitchen between his parents. He believes his presence will end the fighting. If he can make them laugh right before he departs for bed, he believes the night will end happily. Doyle’s sharp and gritty realism comes to the fore again in The Snapper, which depicts the Rabbitte family plunged into the dilemma of an unmarried daughter’s pregnancy. A more subtle novel than its predecessor, The Snapper shows how the typical Irish urban family functions in a largely post-Catholic, post-nationalist Ireland. Rather than expelling young Sharon or sending for the priest as an earlier generation would have done, Jimmy Sr. and Veronica Rabbitte manage to absorb the news and eventually the new arrival – the ‘snapper’ of the title – into their daily life. But it is the deepening relationship between Sharon and her father that provides a primary focus, as Doyle explores the changing gender roles of contemporary Ireland. Through the softening and maturing of Jimmy Sr., he analyses in particular the nature of modern Irish masculinity, a subject followed through to the crisis of male confidence depicted in the final novel of the sequence, The Van. Doyle’s interest in family life is a mainstay of his fiction. The Rabbittes, in the trilogy, are both distinct and archetypal; intimately delineated and at the same time, fully representative of the contemporary Irish family unit. But Doyle’s positive presentation of their humour and resilience gives way, in his next work, to a darker picture of family relationships.
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