Among the generation of Irish writers who emerged in the 1980s, Roddy Doyle is one of the most popular both at home and worldwide. While his popular appeal has been undisputed from the moment his privately published first novel, The Commitments (1987), b...
Not many writers can lay claim to comparisons to James Joyce and Raymond Carver, but Roddy Doyle--armed with a lively literary style and comedic flair--has found himself in that happy position. His novels, which focus on working-class families in modern...
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993) is a novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle. It won the Booker Prize in 1993. The story is about a 10 year old boy and events that happen within his age group. He also has to cope with his parents' deteriorating relationship. The...
"The past is a foreign country," L. P. Hartley wrote in the opening line of The Go-Between (1953); "they do things differently there." This observation applies not only to the collective or societal past but to the individual and psychological past as well: childhood...
One noticeable thing about the younger Irish writers: They tend to talk about their own writing in a refreshingly unpretentious way. No high-flown critical talk; you'd think they were meticulous carpenters describing their craft. It's that way to be sure with Roddy Doyle,...
In the following essay, Cosgrove contrasts traditional Irish ideology and modern Irish thought in Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, comparing Paddy Clarke's childhood and subsequent loss of innocence with the young adults in Ireland who embrace modern ideals and pop culture.
In the following review, O'Hagan reflects on the parallels between his own childhood and the fictitious childhood of Paddy Clarke in Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, complimenting Doyle's ability to realistically narrate the novel from a ten-year-old's perspective.
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