Paddy Clarke is a 10-year-old boy, running free and wild in a small area of Dublin around 1967. He is intelligent, inquisitive, imaginative and spends his time playing and fighting with his friends and trying to kept on the good side of his parents and form teacher. Mostly his life is happy with clearcut rules of engagement, but gradually he starts to worry more about his parents’ relationship. A great reminder of childhood thought processes.

Told in fragments, this builds up to be a pitch perfect retelling of a boy’s childhood in 1960s Dublin. The way Roddy Doyle vividly recreates a boy’s thought processes is really quite remarkable. He recalls all those insecurities I assume we all have, but forget later. Paddy tells us all about how he pieces things together, how he feels about things inside, but decides to do something else because he has to follow the unwritten rules of the playground and friendship. Kevin is supposedly his best friend, but he doesn’t actually like him best; he just feels that he’s the one he has to keep on his side for some undefinable reason. Other friends in their small but amorphous group are also either tolerated or there so they can be picked on by the rest. Paddy’s younger brother tags along, often annoyingly, but Paddy will stand up for him if necessary, but this isn’t possible if the worst bully is the one pulling the shots: that’s Paddy’s form teacher. The boys are violent to each other, but have unwritten rules about how far to go. Their teacher can do whatever he wants, physically and mentally torturing the boys. Outside school, the boys get into all sorts of mischief and sometimes danger, playing on building sites, down on the shore, playing imaginative games with whatever they find. One of their games is shoplifting. but even that has its own code of conduct. Their lives and games are childish, but harsh and occasionally a hint of tragedy creeps in, with children affected by a mother who died young, absent fathers, polio, leukaemia, drowning.

The memories range over a few years in the late 1960s, but the main sweep takes place in the last two years at primary school around 1967; we know this because Paddy worries about the Israelis and the Arabs fighting and newspaper headlines of ‘World War Three Looms Near’. He really only worries about current events because his father spends so much time reading the newspaper and watching the news. As the novel progresses, Paddy’s worries shift towards trying to keep his father happy. He hears the arguments between his parents escalating, but doesn’t know what they’re about or how to stop them. He never discusses them with his parents and his brother seems oblivious. It’s not something he can discuss with friends except obliquely. He worries, plans to run away. Even if he knew what they were arguing about, he loves both his parents. He sees his father’s flaws, but he’s still his Da. Ma is the best of all the mothers. Paddy thinks a lot about everything and worries.

For me, the first half of this turned into a wonderful bout of nostalgia that provoked discussions with my husband about family traditions, food and television. Even though a lot of this was alien to me, not being a boy, I can recognise the sense of freedom children had back in those days. Some of the playground things mentioned were familiar to me, but I went to a mixed school, so maybe the boys weren’t quite so wild and the teachers were definitely not as vindictive, though I think many of us could tell stories of when teachers did go too far or incidents which would make today’s health and safety conscious parents’ toes curl. All in all, a great read.


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Released during the wonderful Dutch BookCrossing meeting on the beach at Castricum-on-Sea.
This book has been released as part of the following BookCrossing challenges:
- The Ultimate Challenge - read and release books, with extra points for a monthly theme
- Reduce Mount TBR (To Be Read) - read and release books on the TBR list since before the end of the previous year.
- 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Challenge.
- 666 Books, Countries, Continents Challenge = 36 books

Meegenomen uit Castricum om los te laten in de boekwissel op Utrecht CS.

Hallo daar, vinder! Als je dit leest, heb je een boek gevonden. Gefeliciteerd! Hopelijk is het iets dat je leuk vindt; zo niet, dan heeft het je toch tenminste hier gebracht en dat is ook wat waard. Je mag het boek gerust doorgeven aan iemand anders, of zomaar ergens achterlaten. Ondertussen was je toch maar mooi nieuwsgierig genoeg om op deze site te komen kijken. Kijk gerust wat rond. Veel plezier! Als je het boek ook wilt volgen dan kun je je het beste aanmelden als nieuwe bookcrosser (Engelse pagina). Ik zou het erg leuk vinden als je mijn naam (janna2) wilt invullen als Referring Member, dan kan ik zien dat je ook een geregistreerde bookcrosser bent geworden.Oh ja, er is ook een Nederlandse website voor als je nog meer wilt weten over bookcrossing: www.bookcrossing.nl.

Boring at first, captivating later!