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This was a recent purchase because
1) I love the Irish and
2) I had never read anything by Roddy Doyle before.
This book more or less encompasses what it is to be a boy in the setting. The beginning of the book is written in a style quite similar to stream-of-conciousness and it takes us through Paddy's early exploits and introduces us to his family, specifically in the earlier years, his brother Sinbad who tags along on his adventures and appears to cramp his style. While it seems at the beginning that Paddy is just an ordinary boy, the book expands on his realities and relationships and the family atmosphere he is surrounded by serves as a central part of the story.
Paddy becomes an interesting character for the reader early on in the book. His thoughts on mundane daily activities are exposed to the reader and are continually changing through his childhood. The relationship between his parents gets worse and worse and eventually Paddy takes his parents' problems into himself. He starts to see Sinbad as a fellow listener, but when Sinbad doesn't wish to be involved, his actions towards his brother become abusive perhaps reflecting what he is seeing in his parents.
The writing in the book is flawless, the Gaelic phrases throughout intensified my wish to learn it (but damn it's so hard to pronounce anything). The continued events throughout the book and the slow disintegration of Paddy's family acts as a constant backdrop and shapes the events and his behaviour throughout the book. Not much more can be said without going too deeply into the plot.
A Booker Prize winner, this book is well worth a read.
This famous book spans over one hundred years and the generations of the Buendia family living in a jungle settlement in Colombia. A family tree at the beginning of the book helps the reader to keep track of the many almost-same-named characters and who they are in the scale of things. The Buendias appear from the beginning to have a rich history and the beginning of the book tells of how the (fictional) settlement of Macondo came to be.
The book also has a sort of magical view of time. The family is cyclical in operation. Indeed it seems that many people with the same names have similar attitudes and often similar fates. This appears to be Marquez's way of showing the destiny given to people by their very birth and this is highlighted by the demise of the many sons of Colonel Aureliano Buendia only after they are brought together in the discovery of their common father.
Many of the characters in this book, especially the male ones undergo periods of great despair and speculation and all the male characters starting with the patriarch Jose Arcadio Buendia seek out solitude in their different ways throughout periods of their lives. The women in the book are also given interesting characters, in particular Jose's wife who lives almost to the end of the book and who delivers some of the memorable dialogue about the fate of the family that comes through at the end. The women seem to be firm in their wants and desires unlike the men who almost seem to let emotion dictate their every move a little too much.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is full of blackish humour which perpetuates until the very end. I think it's a must-read for everyone.
This book, Smith's first weaves the stories of two families in England who come into contact by the most unlikely of circumstances. Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal meet during the war, and become best friends for life. Samad dreams of good ancestry and honour from war while Archie battles grim depression after he splits up with his wife. Eventually the story follows on to Archie marrying a much younger, Jamaican woman and Samad marrying a woman of young age as well as of his race (Bengali). The story then begins to weave the stories with the many different perspectives of children of the two couples as well as friends of them.
This book has received both rave reviews and bad reviews. I personally think it is spectacular, although there are a lot of plot lines as it spans many years, it tells of the traumas and celebrations of both families with a bit of humour thrown in as well.
You can tell the author has great intellect and observation skills from her accurate portrayal of life in a middle class environment, with the ups and downs of being an ethnic minority and how it affects the choices of both Samad and his two twin boys who are brought up in different countries and also Archie and Clara and their daughter Irie who battles her own demons throughout the book.
It also battles the issue of the boredom of perfection when the Chalfen family is introduced, it speaks of Joyce Chalfen, the perfect housewife with the perfect successful husband and perfectly behaved children who have high aspirations. With the introduction of both Irie and Millat (one of Samad's sons) into the Chalfen life, it shows how she instantly takes Millat, the 'troubled' boy under her wing, as if suddenly she needs a new project. The issue of genetic engineering and cloning also plays a part as the father of the Chalfen family, Marcus who creates the 'FutureMouse', which will live ten years and has genes designed to further examine causes of cancer in humans. With the introduction of Millat, Irie and later Magid (Millat's brother) into the Chalfen way of life, this seemingly ordinary British family is thrown completely into disarray and it's very skilfully and believably done.
There are so many issues that this book battles so well, it is astounding that this was only Zadie Smith's first work. It is also something I would like to read again, because I know I've already forgotten some of the wonderful scenarios brought up in this book. It has been criticised as being too quick from one scenario to the next with too many plot-lines, however, I believe this is only a further demonstration of the complexities of family life, and although there it was a case of nearing the end of the book and it mentioning something and me having to read back to recap what it was, it definitely worked for the mood and the spirit of the book.
The one complaint I did have about the book is that I would have enjoyed a further exploration of the characters Clara and Magid. Understandable though as the book was already long and it would be impossible to take it in from every perspective. For Magid especially it also served as an illustration of his return confusing the characters as well, because he had been away for so long.
I definitely think this is a must-read and I would be keen to read more of Smith's work.
