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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. 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. Books written in the voice of a child had best use that technique for a reason...the child's perspective becomes wearing unless there is some very, very compelling narrative reason to make us follow a kid around without wanting to scream blue murder after a while. Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha (1993) is in many respects, his most accomplished novel, its bleak portrait of marital breakdown, witnessed through the sensitive yet naïve eyes of its ten-year-old protagonist, brilliantly and movingly constructed. As in The Woman who Walked into Doors (1996), which confronts the subject of domestic violence, Doyle exposes the disturbing and often painful reality behind the fictional ideal, and the public face, of the family. But Paddy Clarke is also important as a historical novel. Set in 1968, just as the Barrytown estate was being constructed in the middle of the north Dublin countryside, it evokes the family as an allegory for the Irish nation and its difficult transition from coherent rural traditionalism to fragmentary modern urban culture. But author Roddy Doyle isn't preaching about social change, he's just telling a story. Ten-year-old Paddy Clarke's story. It's a meaningful read, despite many stops and starts and a middle that sagged, and if you need quotation marks to distinguish dialogue, you won't find any here.
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? In his home, Paddy stays awake all night, listening at his parent's bedroom door, hoping that the fighting ends. But one night, he realized that it was not worth it, when he witnessed his father hitting his mother. Update this section! Not just any childhood, and certainly not any in 2014 in a middle-class or affluent neighborhood, where the children can now be found indoors, and in silence, save the hum of their tv or computer.
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I am now into my final three Booker winners, and this one left me somewhat in two minds. I had never read Doyle before and always had a feeling that I wouldn't enjoy it that much. I laughed out loud many times, especially at the workings of Paddy's mind, where while going about his school, play and home life, he simultaneously imagined himself as Geronimo, their bikes as horses, himself as George Best the Manchester United super-star, etc. I also got teary at times because, this being Roddy Doyle, we see life in all its complexity. Paddy's ma and da aren't getting along and we see the burden this represents for Paddy and the responsibility he takes on for making things ok for them. The break-up of Paddy's parents' marriage isn't based on memory. My parents seemed happy, and still do. I'm not sure why I made Paddy watch his parents fight - I don't remember. Maybe I was one of the boys in Lord of the Flies, throwing stones at a smaller boy, waiting to be stopped. But no one stopped me, and I hit him. Or maybe I just knew a good story when I tripped over one. Fiction can be a cruel business. People sometimes ask me what happened to Paddy. I tell them he's an MEP. Their faces always tell me the same thing: they wish he was 10 again, and miserable. But childhood isn’t always filled with magic, dreams don’t always come true, and life isn’t always fair. Parents sometimes fight, and children aren’t shielded from the worries of life.
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.Doyle's language employs a register that gives the reader the vivid impression of listening to a ten-year-old Irish boy from the 1960s. I was first introduced to Roddy Doyle’s stories when I went to see the movie based on his book The Commitments, and then later on read his book The Guts, which follows the characters in The Commitments, and then following that several years later read The Star Dogs: Beyond the Stars, a short book written for younger readers about the Soviet space dogs. This dreariness surprised me, given that in 1993 when it won the Booker prize, some critics sneered that this book was an easy, "populist" choice (presumably because it sold more copies than any of the others and was written by the author of The Commitments). But it isn't – as was implied – light entertainment. It's a slow and painful lament for the death of childhood – albeit with a few funny bits. It's one of the hardest Booker winners I've encountered. On reflection, I found it sad and sweet and moving. But getting to that stage wasn't always pleasurable.
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