Reading Response (holiday reading)

 Over the holidays I read first ‘The Snapper’, then ‘The Commitments’ (and am now reading ‘The Van’), all by Roddy Doyle, the first two being set around the same time and about the same family.

I finished ‘The Commitments’ yesterday. It was Roddy Doyle’s first book, and it’s about a bunch of young Irish people, in the 80’s, that try to start a band. A soul group. The main character is Jimmy Rabbitte, and he’s the one who decides to start the group in the first place, and he becomes the manager. He gets together his mates, Outspan and Derek (guitar and bass), then Declan or Deco for vocals, Dean on saxophone, Joey The Lips Fagen on trumpet, Billy on drums (then Mikah), James on piano, and Imelda, Bernie and Natalie as backing vocalists. Together, they are The Commitments.

The book is written in a very relaxed way and the language, though rough, it is natural, and above all, believable. It’s a fantastic style of writing, and is great to read. ‘The Commitments’ is very funny and enjoyable. The purpose of the writing isn’t to make you laugh, but it has a kind of everyday humour that the readers can relate too. I’m not sure how the working-class Irish readers found the book, maybe it was too close to home, but I personally loved the Irish feel of all the books. He develops it so well, and the way he portrays the story is original and inspiring. Roddy doesn’t go into too much depth about looks of characters or the settings, but the dialogue and the little descriptions he does give are enough for the reader to visualise and enjoy the story. Each character is original and vividly portrayed. They all have different ways they communicate and think, and way to do things, but they are all typical Irish folk.

‘The Snapper’ is set around the same time as the first book, (the main character, Sharon, is still twenty, same as in ‘The Commitments’) but the characters that are focused on in the first book are now in the background, and the background characters in the last book are now pushed to the front. It’s about Jimmy Jr’s (who was the main character in ‘The Commitments’) sister, Sharon, and how the family deals with her becoming pregnant. You get to know more about the Rabbittes, like Jimmy Sr, the father. One thing I love about the books is how they aren’t set in many places. In ‘The Snapper’, you only really get to see the Rabbitte household and the pub (even though the main character is pregnant. That’s another example of Irish culture; they drink a lot).

The first thing I noticed when I started to read ‘The Snapper’ was Roddy Doyle’s style of writing. He doesn’t write quotation marks when people speak. Here’s an example:

Sharon took her vodka and her jacket and her bag and went across to Jackie O’Keefe, Mary Curran and Yvonne Burgess, her friends; the gang.

-Hiyis, she said when she got there.

-Oh, howyeh, Sharon.

-Hiyeh, Sharon.

-Howyeh, Sharon.

-Hiyis, said Sharon.

He just puts in little dashes, which he also does when someone pauses in conversation. Doyle also doesn’t tend to explain who is speaking, which I also admire. I like it when authors don’t feel they have to spell everything out for you, and even though you don’t know for certain who’s talking, you can nearly always guess because he’s set up the characters so beautifully. The book is made up of conversations like this. Realistic but also funny. That’s why it’s so easy to read, and why you can imagine and bond with all the characters, and why you enjoy it. He also doesn’t have chapters, just sections divided by three asterisks.

*  *  *

Sometimes the sections are long, like a few pages, sometimes they’re only a few sentences long.

The books pull you in, forms vivid characters and images, makes you laugh, makes you sigh, makes you glad that you aren't them, makes you want to be in Ireland, spins you around, throws you out, then leaves you begging for more. They are very entertaining and after reading 'The Snapper' it made me want to go and write a story of my own. I have never read anything quite like it.

Photo from the movie 'The Commitments'