Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (original 1993; edition 2011)

Paddy Clarke is ten in 1968.Paddy and his friends stage a Viking funeral for a dead rat, run the Grand National over the neighbors' hedged gardens, set fires at building sites, rob ladies' magazines (because they were the easiest) from shops, and torment each other, forming fluid alliances and watching for weaknesses. They are funny and frightening and unaware of both. The early part of the book roams from hair-raising adventure to adventure, incorporating casual cruelties and unheeded dangers with Sinbad, Paddy's younger brother. Then the ever-simmering tensions between his parents intensify. The mysterious fights, his mother's tears, his father's black moods, move into Paddy's life and begin to take it over. Paddy begins to see his little brother with new eyes - a person who can share the burden of fear and maybe help stop it from happening. But Sinbad is uncooperative. Too young or too-long tormented by his older brother, he refuses to even listen. Paddy is left to turn the tide by himself. He stays awake all night because if he does it will stop them fighting; he watches them and interposes himself between them, learning how to turn their anger. The last third of the book is filled with uncertainty. The sense that anything can happen at any time keeps the reader on tenterhooks, hopeful, like Paddy, that normality will return. ( )

Paddy Clarke is definately totally screwed up kid who seems to right himself by the end of the book. I was totally inscensed by the wicked things he and his friends did, and of course Paddy thought it was Brilliant! Thank goodness he wasn't my kid! I was also very annoyed by the writing style as if it were childlike sentences all the way through the book written by someone with ADHD! I only finished it to see what actually happens to Paddy....but it was interesting to say the least and had quite a few laughs. It took longer to read because my heart wasn't in it like others I have read so I went back and forth wishing I could sit long enough to finish it. ( )

Paddy Clarke grandit à Dublin.A la fin des années 60, il a dix ans et son petit monde, entre l'école et le terrain de jeux, son amitié avec Kevin, le football, et son attachement pour son petit frère, est rempli de rêves et de mystères. Paddy est à l'âge où l'on cherche son identité. Son plus grand désir, toutefois, serait de voir ses parents cesser de se disputer, mais son père finit par partir et Paddy doit affronter les moqueries dans la cour de récréation : 'Paddy Clarke n'a plus de papa, ha, ha, ha !'Paddy, heureusement, possède des trésors d'énergie et d'intelligence pour détourner l'angoisse : au milieu de la mésentente qui brise son foyer va surgir en lui la ferme détermination de survivre.Avec son mélange 'irlandais' de tendresse et d'humour, Roddy Doyle a su rendre l'enfance dans toute sa réalité : le temps des décisions brutales, des grands chagrins inconsolables et des infinies possibilités...

Heard a lot about this Booker Winner (1993) but never had a copy to hand to read. Happily ploughed through this to kill time during 5 weeks in the village. Doyle takes you back to a working class Irish Republic of the 1970s but without any preamble or explanation. The prose lifts you up and thumps you down into the body of a child and you are left staring out from within. Doyle has perfectly portrayed what life is like from the point of a view of a 9, 10, 11 year old.

The prose is captivating. It’s disjointed, random, jumbled and full of the exact kinds of observation boys make. Take this:

I hardly knew Catherine; I didn’t really know her. She was my sister but she was only a baby, a bit bigger. I never spoke to her. She was useless: she slept a lot. She walked around showing us what was in her potty; she thought it was great.

And the conversations he recounts between adults are magnificently distorted with exactly the right balance of accuracy and naivety. As the book progresses and Paddy grows, this naivety gives way to chilling realities for him. I don’t think I can remember a book where growing up has been so accurately depicted. It’s so obvious you hardly notice it until you look back.

It wasn’t as funny as I’d hoped. But it was brilliant. ( )

This terribly sad, but at the same time, quietly hilarious book runs as does a child's mind. All broken into vignettes, no plot, no direction, inconsistent and totally stream-of-conciousness, the story shows Paddy growing up. There is the depictions of Irish poverty, the lively and unruly neighbourhood soccer games, and the slow burn of a relationship that becomes, in the end, explosive. There is so much defeat in this book, which leaves the ending as a kind of release. Finally, it is over.

My favourite passage in the whole book is the cheeky running race, through neighbourhood front yards, trying to get in front and raising a ruckus, so that the stragglers would get caught. Hilarious. ( )