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Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by: Roddy Doyle

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Rating: - You open the book with no expectations and close it with desire for more!

You open the book with no expectations and close it with desire for more!

'Paddy Clarke HA HA HA' by Roddy Doyle

Unaware of the author Roddy Doyle and his work, you may approached the book `Paddy Clarke', with some negativity. However you open the book with no expectations and close it, feeling a sense of achievement, emotion and a desire for more! Paddy Clarke is far more dynamic, tense and emotional than any other book you have read. It requires a great sense of concentration, as there are no chapters to separate events, keeping you on the ball as you jump from home life to school troubles. Roddy Doyle "Tells the story of ten-year-old Paddy Clarke, who sees everything but understands less and less."

It's remarkable how throughout you stop and make links between Patrick (Paddy Clarke) and yourself, remembering when you were ten years old and the questions you always asked, `why or how' trying to understand the logic but really adding further complication to what you thought was the correct and perfect answer.

It seems that it is not the events that are important within, but the emotion expressed through the language to help convey Patrick's thoughts and misconceptions. You tend to forget events but remember the emotional drive behind them, which pushes the desire as a ten year old to always want to know more, and the reasoning behind it. The language helps portray both Patrick's state of mind and thoughts reflecting that of ten year olds. When home life isn't how you dreamt it could be, and the sensations of the energy rush when fulfilling dares from friends, making it both comical & emotional throughout.

You finish and leave the book with a sense of connection, that you once knew Patrick. As Patrick represents every adult who never understood during their childhood why things happen and why you are unable to change events that occurred in your life.

Rating: - An emotional escapade...

It is understandable why Roddy Doyle's fourth novel, `Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha', was awarded the 1993 Man Booker prize. Despite initially being a tale about a young boy's "fun and adventure" during 1960's Ireland, the novel expresses deeper meaning, conveying the drastic effect family life can have on a child.

The early part of the novel can seem confusing, with no clear chronological structure. In one paragraph, Paddy is being stung by stinging nettles - in the next, he is at home learning about fingerprints from his "da". Yet, do not let this dissuade you. After the first dozen pages, it is clear that Doyle mixes up time periods and key events - an effective technique that portrays the confusion of Paddy about his parents' deteriorating relationship. The lack of ordered structure only increases the empathy felt for Paddy in this moving story.

Despite addressing somewhat serious matters, Doyle includes snippets of child-like humor throughout, which will not fail to make you smile. Doyle's incorporation of humor will have you reminiscing about your own childhood memories - the games you played, the nicknames you made, and the adventures you had. He captures innocence in a way that will make you want to protect Paddy from the harsh realities of life, be his friend.

Whilst this is not necessarily an "I-can't-wait-to-get-home-and-read-it" book, it is nevertheless compelling when you do pick it up and start reading. Doyle involves the reader in Paddy's life, narrating it from his point of view, and allowing us to see his inner thoughts and feelings. The closer you near the end of the book, the clearer it is that Paddy's home life has changed him from a boy who was once scared of the dark, to one who, in "pitch black ... still wasn't scared". This is a novel that will certainly appeal to readers looking for an emotional escapade.

Rating: - Not as enjoyable as I had hoped

I really wanted to love this book and was disappointed when I didn't. There is no doubt that Doyle brilliantly captures what it is like to be a 10 year-old boy. His inspired use of dialogue and the thoughts of the group of boys both ring true but I just didn't find myself getting emotionally drawn into the main character's life. The story of a boy struggling to understand the changing, adult world around him and witnessing his parents increasingly violent relationship is one that interested me. I had thought I would devour a book like this in one greedy reading but this just didn't happen. The structure itself jumps around throughout the novel (perhaps much like the mind of a 10 year-old boy) and I found it just too easy to put down. There was not enough of a reason to keep reading. Even when I finally reached the end of the novel I felt pretty unmoved and unchanged.

Having said that, I grew up in Ireland and recognised much of the picture Roddy Dolye paints. For me, the book did capture its changing face during this period. This is cleverly reflected in the way the area the boys play in is disappearing, only to be replaced by more and more housing estates.

Although I now feel too far removed from the mind of a 10 year old to have properly engaged with this book, I would not rule out reading more of Roddy Doyle's work.

Rating: - Moving Description of Childhood and the Leaving of It

This book was published in 1993. It described a few years in an Irish boy's life from around age 8 to 10 in the mid- to late 1960s, in his own voice.

I enjoyed most the way the novel showed the narrator's development -- in perception, use of language, self-understanding. From the beginning, when the only concern was the love of play, the daily explorations and sadistic competitions with friends and baby brother, and early role models like Father Damien and Daniel Boone. Simple joys like the smell of a mother's meal, a warm blanket at night, a compliment won from a father, and a shared laugh with parents. To the first bicycle, the growing love of sport, the radio and television, and inklings of the power of language, including swear words, of course. To the brink of adolescence, where the comforts of a stable home and simple friendships were left behind, and conflicted emotions had to be accepted. It brought back many memories.

For this reader, the story passed over too quickly the religious education of the day, which must have had more impact, as well as the thrill of going to the cinema and the first glimmers that there was more to kissing than at first seemed apparent. The story seemed to lose something of its focus and intensity after the first 100 or so pages and might've gained from some tightening. This at least was the impression I got from the author's style of moving rapidly from one scene and subject to another. Moving ending, though.

Excerpt near the beginning:

"Our names were all around Barrytown, on the roads and paths. You had to do it at night when they were all gone home, except the watchmen. Then when they saw the names in the morning it was too late, the cement was hard."

Later on:

"Sometimes, when you were thinking about something, trying to understand it, it opened up in your head without you expecting it to, like it was a soft spongy light unfolding, and you understood, it made sense forever . . . . Sometimes you gave up and suddenly the sponge opened. It was brilliant, it was like growing taller."

"I didn't listen to them. They were only kids."

Rating: - A worthy winner of the 1993 Booker Prize

My Mum is a born and bred Dubliner and having lived through the same generation as Roddy Doyle who himself was born in Dublin the pulls to read Doyle's "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" were too strong and too curious for me to ignore.

Doyle comes with a reputation of masterfully describing the Irish - when I completed the book I could only concur that such hype was entirely justified. It must be said though that an Irish background is not essential for such a read (although it might help you understand some of the Gaelic colloquialisms!) because Doyle's magnificent expression allows for the flawless portrayal of a ten year old Dublin boy struggling to comprehend the world around him as he grows up.

Doyle's writing style is unique if not masterful, for me the following line is a fine demonstration of such, it lovingly captures one of Paddy's childhood memories with which the book is scattered; "He gave me half a crown when we went to see him or when he came to see us. He once came on a bike" (p 23) Doyle's prose remains simple enough to emulate the low attention span of a ten year olds world, whilst remaining clever and yet quirky enough to hold you in the complexities of the very same domain. This fusion of styles hides away what I feel is a darker side though; the often `jumpy' narrative is perhaps representative of young Paddy's troubled mindset.

Tragically sad is the way Paddy sees himself as a referee with the ability he thinks to save his parents marriage. Doyle's graphic description reinforced the distress Paddy must have felt, "He'd hit her. Across the face; smack. I tried to imagine it. It didn't make sense. I'd heard it; he'd hit her" (p 190) I felt helpless as I read of a boy doing his best to grow into a strong and proud man whilst watching another, his father, violently loose grip on a marriage. If conflict between mother and father was not enough we see the contrasting ways in which Paddy and his brother Sinbad deal with the situation. Despite desperate pleas from Paddy to do otherwise Sinbad does his best to ignore the brutality choosing instead to implode emotionally.

Painful and bitter are the significant social repercussions of his parents agony -Paddy falls out with his friends leaving himself isolated. I was left with the unsurprising impression that Paddy craves consistency, belonging and love. Paddy sees more and more but understands less and less, he has been forced to grow up fast in a town that does not tolerate weakness; thus making the cross over from childhood into adulthood far from calm.

The title of Doyle's novel intrigued me and its deep meaning is revealed only at the very end of the book. Paddy is jeered by some local boys who laugh at him over his Mum and Dad's failed marriage - he does not give rise to the provocation. The fact he ignores the same boys he would have fought for less in his younger days displays the maturity of adulthood and I was left with the thought that it was the start of Paddy's mental fight against personal demons.

The regular and vivid description throughout read more like memoirs than imagination and I often wondered if the book was maybe semi autobiographical - that is surely tribute to Doyle's talent though. If for a couple of hours you wish to relive some of the nostalgia of being ten again then let Paddy take you on trip round Barrytown - it may make you even more thankful for your `normal' childhood. Either way it will not be long before you acknowledge Ha Ha Ha's 1993 Booker Prize winning credentials.

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