Birthday Book Recs 38/50 : Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Birthday Book Recs: 38/50
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Sally Rooney seemingly catapulted Irish Literature into this new, contemporary realm. (Full disclosure: I have never read a Sally Rooney book. Weird, yes?) But of course writers like James Joyce and Oscar Wilde are considered the OGs of modern Irish Lit. Somewhere in the middle lies Roddy Doyle. I really can’t overstate how much I love Roddy Doyle. Like, truly. This novel, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, was given to me by my parents for Christmas soon after it was published. (So, either the end of high school or early college for me.) As I got older, I continued reading along with whatever he published and actually ended up volunteering at Fighting Words, the Dublin creative writing center he founded. (And I got the special volunteer perk of getting an invite to a small event featuring Doyle, John Banville, and Anne Enright.) He even took the time to write back to my daughter after she read one of his children’s books. Roddy Doyle is brilliant — I mean that in the “smart” way and also the way an Irish person might intend as “class” or the dreaded Americanism “awesome.”
I’m choosing this one because 1) its cover is so good! and 2) it won the Booker. If you’re going to dip into some Doyle, you MUST read The Barrytown trilogy, which includes the novels The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van. But Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, the story of a young boy growing up in Dublin’s working-class Northside in the late 60s, isn’t as dialogue-forward as the others and therefore provides, I think, a slightly easier entry point to Doyle’s work. (I wrote a piece for The Curator several years ago titled — shocker — “On Doyle’s Dialogue.”) Irish history is peppered with its own brand of oppression and poverty and abuses…Doyle touches upon them all while simultaneously using humor to convey ideals of beauty and joy. There is simply no one like him.
You can find all my 50th Birthday Book Recommendations HERE.
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