hate to be facetious about this, but its true, I love to read good books as much as I love to discover which ones are actual impostorsthat is, which ones are overrated past the norm, books like “On the Road,” “Catcher in the Rye,” or anything by Ayn Rand.
Yuck. Well, this one won the Booker, which I can only guess is a HUGE deal, But I guess the year this book was published there were a few other, if any, contenders for the top prize,
Its certainly not awful, Its actually entertaining, readable, sometimes funny, There is true mastery of the language here, an even flow, The tone is more tolerable than say, Emma Donoghues “Room” which is also about a child growing up, But, although I am not at all a fan of the almighty “Huck Finn”, I must say that this one does not possess that wackinessthere is some unconscious logic to Twain's tale, at the very least.
This is a chapterless novel a pretty ordinary account of a pretty ordinary boy, What is the main motor that keeps the prose congruent, that makes the entire novel work The fact that Patricks parents fight, That's all. They keep it private, they try to keep the kids out of it, yet this still registers within Paddy hes human alright, just not a remarkable one.
Indeed Bookers are bestowed upon like the Pulitzers here in the U, S. to novels that exemplify the experience of being European American for a Pulitzer, This hits several targets to become a wellloved book, but it still remains a comingofage story of an Irish impa precocious, slightly evil ten year old boy.
Who do we side with in this account of playground cruelty amp cute impressions With the bully The victim In this case, I would say, . . neither.
Apathy is the worst type of feeling a book can give its reader, Épp tegnap próbáltam összefoglalni két szöveget, de úgy éreztem, mint mindig, amikor egy nagyon jó könyvet olvastam, hogy méltatlan, amit mondok.
Hiszen
nem csak az a lényeg, amit mond, hanem az is, ahogyan, Ahogyan ennek a tízéves fiúnak ugyanolyan természetes az, hogy bandáznak a többi gyerekkel, hogy étel van az asztalon bár fagyira csak csalással futja, mint az erőszak.
Egyszerű, hiteles gyerekhangon mesél arról, hogy felgyújtják az öccse száját és minden hasonló alkalommal a nagytesóra néznek a többiek, rendben vane a kisebb testvér kínzása , hogy a szadista tanár üti és alázza őket nincs is hangoskodás, meg sem pisszennek, hogy amikor az apja a derékszíjával veri, akkor neki tulajdonképpen nem futnia kéne előle, hanem belehátrálnia, akkor nem csípne akkorát.
A csupán bekezdésekre tagolt szövegben ugrálunk a szituációk közt és kis mértékben az időben is, így az első mondatokban időnként nem lehet tudni, az aktuális he kire vonatkozik.
Egyszerű mondatok, semmi fölösleges cizelláltság, egy gyerek szájába nem is illene, Csúfolódások, a tiltott szavak élvezete, brahiból lopás, kegyetlen játékok, Nagyon jól olvasható, őrületesen erős szöveg, Végigkövethetjük, ahogy próbálja megállítani szülei egyre gyakoribb veszekedéseit, ahogy igyekszik megérteni, mi a baj, Szívszorító a gyerekszemszög ebben a helyzetben, És érdekes, hogy bár az erőszak természetes, ha a felnőtt vagy a nagyobb gyerek követi el a kisebbel szemben, a házastársi erőszak egyértelműen töréspont, mindannyiuknál.
Ahogy mindezt elmondja. Ahogy az utolsó oldalon derül ki, mire utal a cím, Akkorákat üt, hogy az ember csak pislog, de olvas rendületlenül, hiszen nem is lehetne semmi másképp, It took me much longer than it should have to finish this slight, inconsequential novel, It won the Booker in, but it's a bit of a mystery why that was so, I would have given the prize to Remembering Babylon by David Malouf, a much better and more significant book in every way,
Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha is written in the voice of Paddy, nine years old in thes, watching The Man From UNCLE on TV and observing his parents' marriage break up.
It's impressionistic, with paraphrasing Jung here, talking about childhood memories 'little islands of memories floating round in the vagueness of ocean', These scraps of memory are not quite in sequence though there is a sense of dawning awareness that grows as the novel moves to its conclusion,
There's no plot as such, which is ok, but I'm not sure what its theme is either, In fact I'm not at all sure what Doyle is on about, except to depict the chaotic order of life in small boy gangs and the violence they impose on each other.
Paddy is awfully cruel to his little brother, setting his lips alight with lighter fuel and delivering 'dead legs' and 'Chinese burns' as a matter of routine.
The gang sets traps to delineate territory in their growing housing estate, and the 'Corporation' children set one of wire, causing one boy to almost lose his foot.
All this is presented as the norm, It's rather disquieting.
The opening lines are an allusion to Portrait of a Young Man by James Joyce, but if there are other allusions as well, I failed to find them.
If any such invisible allusions are what made it worthy of the Booker, then the judges have made a wrong assumption that readers will recognise it, Much too subtle for me, and I've read Portrait twice,
My overwhelming impression is one of distaste for the depiction of a savage little way of life,
I finished reading this book and journalled it on,
Cross posted at The Complete Booker
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