A Good Read The Guts - Roddy Doyle
To be honest, it is a shock to fi nd out that Jimmy Rabbitte is middle aged with teenage children.
over twenty years ago - but it is.
It shouldn’t be - after all, The Commitments was It seems to be a bit of a shock to Jimmy
too - and the shock is compounded when he discovers that he has cancer.... The Commitments may be better known as a fi lm (and now as a stage
musical), but it was a book fi rst: the fi rst of Doyle’s Barrytown trilogy, which followed the fortunes of the Rabbitte family in Dublin. Here, Doyle revisits the family many years on. Ireland is in the grip of the recession, and Jimmy and his wife are feeling the pinch.
rather than discovering new talent, he spends his days digging into the
past for old punk bands who still have a following. And he has cancer. At the age of f of forty seven he has to face the fact that he could die.
Doyle’s style is not for everyone, and his language is not for the faint hearted, but the dialogue still sails off the page as authentically as it ever did, and much of the story is carried through speech. There are a series of well-executed set pieces too, including the fi nale which brings together Jimmy, his long-lost brother Les, an old punk and a former bandmate (and fellow cancer suff erer), to witness Jimmy’s eldest son triumph in front of a festival crowd. OK, he is pretending to be Bulgarian and singing a song which is pretending to be 1930s Irish Blues, but who cares?
If you have read the Barrytown trilogy, this is like meeting a bunch of old friends in the pub. If you haven’t, then read it anyway. Odds are you will go back to the original books to meet the characters as they were in the beginning.
The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett
‘Now ... if you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.’
There is much wisdom in The Wee Free Men - and the above message is my favourite, by far. What teenager doesn’t need to hear it? The thing is, Terry Pratchett has a way of passing on this kind of knowledge so that you don’t even know you are thinking about it - you are too busy laughing, or wondering what on earth will happen next.
The Wee Free Men is not a Discworld novel as such, but is a story of the Discworld.
It follows Tiff any Aching, armed with her trusty frying pan, as
she tries to rescue her brother from the Queen of the Fairies. Luckily, she has the Nac Mac Feegle on her side - slightly incomprehensible, tiny little blue folk who are nothing if not fearsome.
This is an ideal introduction to Pratchett for the younger reader - and for any Discworld fan, the chance to see the Feegle in action is not to be missed.
56 To advertise in thewire t. 07720 429 613 e.
the.wire@btinternet.com eeling the pinch. He is still in the music business, although
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