The Van

Have you ever felt like someone should feel bad? Had that little devil on your shoulder, and let it whisper in your ear, filling your head with poison, covering up the guilt you'll feel later. I guess the devil metaphor was made to make people feel better... But in 'The Van', you can see how the situation has built up to breaking point. It's quite amazing really, but seeing I've just finished it, I still feel kind of in pain. Like my head is kind of sore. You bond with the characters, and it hurts you to see the characters do stupid things. It's a brilliant book, but very irritating at the same time. 

The book is called 'The Van', but the van doesn't actually come into the story until about halfway, maybe a bit less. The book begins, and you slowly realize that Jimmy Sr has lost his job, probably because of his age (or more, they want someone younger). It shows you how unhappy he is. He describes this feeling in his stomach, this ball of air, hard and cold. He feels lonely, and depressed. The family is poor, and no one is the same as the last book. But finally, nearing the middle of the book, things change for the better. Bimbo (Jimmy Sr's mate) decides to buy a chipper van, because he too has been made redundant. The book is in third person, but it mainly describes Jimmy's line of thought, so it's really from his point of view. And when Bimbo is fired, Jimmy becomes happier because he can now spend time with his best friend. Things pick up, Bimbo buys the van and after some hard work fixing it up, they start to sell fish and chips outside the local pub. It takes off. They make a small fortune on the first night. Though Bimbo was the one that bought the van, they're partners, and Jimmy gets half the profit. But things build up. Looking back on it, it's hard to tell where things start, but eventually things get really bad. And it ends on a bad note. Well, no, not a completely bad note. Things should get better afterwards. But not after they do some pretty stupid things. 


Roddy Doyle is pretty amazing. Just the way he writes it. He captures it beautifully. Well, as beautifully as possible when it's the working class Irish he's writing about. Maybe beautiful is not the right word... but wonderfully. One example of brilliant writing is when he goes on for pages and pages about just how happy everyone is that in an international game of soccer, the Irish bet the Romanians. After describing in depth the scene at the pub, the section ends with:


And then he [Jimmy Sr] went home and Veronica was in the kitchen and she did a fry for him, and he cried again when he was telling her about the pub and the match and meeting Jimmy Jr. And she called him an eejit. It was the best day of his life.

*   *   *

And then they got beaten by the Italians and that was the end of that.

*   *   *

Bimbo put the keys in etc, etc.


The book explores human nature. When I went into the kitchen after reading the book and explained my disappointed expression to my Dad, he said that we wouldn't enjoy the book if all the characters were satisfied. I argued that at least things should turn out well by the end, but I do see his point. Roddy Doyle pushes the ideas that we, as humans, have. What would happen if a human became really spiteful, but let's put it into a situation that people can relate to, or that at least feels realistic. This is what would happen, 'The Van'. But that doesn't make it any less painful to read when one of the characters slip up.


The book is written as well 'The Snapper', and 'The Commitments', but it's more serious and takes a long time developing feelings, mood, characters etc. It's nearly twice the length of the other two books. Though it has this dark, underlining feel through out the book, it can still make you laugh. There are still lovely moments and you forget that the characters have worries. As I mentioned before, it is really Jimmy Sr's take on the story, his ideas that are explored and the book it mostly displayed from his point of view, so you feel what he feels. When he's depressed, the reader emphasizes. When Jimmy laughs, you laugh. When he's angry, you too get angry, but sometimes it can be at him. 


Jimmy Sr is not perfect, but he's is a lovely character. He's a fine dad, not too rough, and a great granddad, very dedicated. After reading 'The Snapper' you begin to really like the character of Jimmy. He does have his faults, like that through out 'The Van' he keeps checking out other women when he has a perfectly lovely wife at home. He also has this recurring habit of wanting justice, his own little kind. He feels sometimes that he has been wronged and that people should apologize or at least realize what they've done to him. For example, in 'The Snapper', he begins to ignore Sharon, his daughter, so she might realize that her being pregnant has affected him too, and he thinks he's turned into the local laughing stock. Sharon quickly realizes this (the fact that he wont talk to her properly anymore) and so she threatens to move out. Jimmy Sr doesn't want to give up, but Sharon is stubborn, and he ends up begging her to stay. His little guilt-tripping acts always back-fire on him. 'The Van' slowly turns into that, Jimmy Sr's want for justice. But by the end, I'd forgotten what he actually wanted from it all, and I think the characters have too. 

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'