#16
paddy clarke ha ha ha, Roddy Doyle
I read this directly after The Sea, another Booker winner from an Irish author. But while Banville did everything possible to hide his Irish roots and made his book so amorphous it could have been set in Cape Cod or Cornwall, Roddy Doyle is at least recognisably Irish. His children are also believable as horrible little sods. In fact, this book could come second to condoms as the perfect method of contraception.
- This is our field, I said again.
I kicked him.
HORRIBLE HORRIBLE CHILD.
- The Holy Family went to Eygpt when Herod was after them.
- That's right. There's always work for carpenters.
LOVE IT.
I still don't understand why the father left. I mean, he got to beat up his wife and she let him; isn't that the perfect situation for a domestic abuser? *shrug*
... at least it's Irish. Yeah.
Previously, on Book Glomp 2010:
The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories, Anton Chekhov
I'll take you there, Joyce Carol Oates
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides ♥
The School for Husbands, Moliere
On Green Dolphin Street, Sebastian Faulks
The Famished Road, Ben Okri
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell ♥
The Sea, the Sea, Irish Murdoch ♥
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
The Sea, John Banville
I read this directly after The Sea, another Booker winner from an Irish author. But while Banville did everything possible to hide his Irish roots and made his book so amorphous it could have been set in Cape Cod or Cornwall, Roddy Doyle is at least recognisably Irish. His children are also believable as horrible little sods. In fact, this book could come second to condoms as the perfect method of contraception.
- This is our field, I said again.
I kicked him.
HORRIBLE HORRIBLE CHILD.
- The Holy Family went to Eygpt when Herod was after them.
- That's right. There's always work for carpenters.
LOVE IT.
I still don't understand why the father left. I mean, he got to beat up his wife and she let him; isn't that the perfect situation for a domestic abuser? *shrug*
... at least it's Irish. Yeah.
Previously, on Book Glomp 2010:
The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories, Anton Chekhov
I'll take you there, Joyce Carol Oates
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides ♥
The School for Husbands, Moliere
On Green Dolphin Street, Sebastian Faulks
The Famished Road, Ben Okri
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell ♥
The Sea, the Sea, Irish Murdoch ♥
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
The Sea, John Banville