Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
December 26th 2006 23:23
'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' is the fourth novel by Roddy Doyle, published in the early 90s, and one of his few stand-alone novels. It also won the Man Booker prize - a rather controversial win too, a lot of snobbish types were offended that such a popularist work won the award over more traditionally heavy-going literature-type books. It also happens to be a rather short novel, I knocked it over during a slow day at work.
Paddy Clarke is a ten-year old boy growing up in 60s Ireland. He hates his little brother, Sinbad, and he spends his time running amok causing mischief and the like. His parents always seem to be fighting, and he has a hard time understanding what these fights are about. We follow his misadventures at school, home and all the places in between, and we watch his interactions with other boys his age, all from his own point of view.
This is a wonderful and fantastic book. Like Doyle's Barrytown trilogy (The Van, The Snapper and The Commitments), it doesn't really feature a straight-forward and linear plot, instead we see events the way they happen in life - without rhyme or reason. Doyle filters all this through the perception of his ten-year old protagonist, placing emphasis on the things that a ten-year old would remember, and glancing over the things that he wouldn't even notice. As such, it's a work of genius. The book is written in a way that calls to mind our own childhood, the way we see things as a child - the way we force understanding onto things, and the ways we get it all wonderfully wrong. It's a fabulous and unerring portrait of childhood, full of fun and humour and the cruelty of young boys. It makes all other child-based first-person novels I've read seem fake, trite and generally way off the mark.
I implore anyone and everyone to pick up this book if they see it around... let it swallow you up and transform you into a kid again, and maybe you can laugh and jeer and cry with Paddy Clarke for a while.
| 61 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
