Mary Whipple 2006-07-12
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Though Doyle never intended to write a trilogy, his first three novels are so true-to-life and so representative of north Dublin that it is easy to see why they are now grouped as a "trilogy." All are set in the same blighted neighborhood, an area of overcrowded tenements, unemployment, and hardscrabble living, but also an area full of life, dreams for the future, rowdy friendships centered around the pub, and close families. Focusing on various members of the Rabbitte family, the novels show life as it is really lived here, with moments of high humor and often hilarious interactions alternating with moments of sad realization and broken dreams.
In The Commitments, Jimmy Rabbitte, Jr. forms a soul band from neighborhood musicians and singers, the band offering its members the opportunity to feel successful--at something! The Snapper concerns teenager Sharon Rabbitte, who, after a wild night at the pub, discovers she is expecting a little "snapper" by a man she loathes but will not identify. Sharon's pregnancy is a source of tension with her father, especially since there are already five other children in the family. The Van focuses on the father, Jimmy Rabbitte, Sr., now unemployed, who goes to work with his best friend Bimbo, who has bought a "chips" van for selling burgers, fish, and chips at sporting events, an experience that tests the friendship.
The dialogue throughout these novels is lightning-fast, filled with local dialect, crude profanities, witticisms, and can-you-top-this insults. In this neighborhood, survival is based on toughness and the ability to think quickly on one's feet, and the dialogue often resembles a stage play more than a novel. Characterization, which is thin in The Commitments gradually becomes more complex in later novels. The Snapper, with two main characters, becomes an intimate family drama, more emotionally moving than The Commitments. With The Van, Doyle develops into a real novelist, using dialogue to depict the complex tensions which evolve between two best friends who eventually find themselves at each other's throats.
The Rabbitte family is both individualized and symbolic of the neighborhood, and the three novels together show their need for dreams, along with their attitudes towards education, sex, factory work, and the church. We see their "escapes" from the workday, their physicality, and their amusements and humor. Here, in his Barrytown novels, Doyle shows the vibrancy of life in one blighted area and celebrates the small successes and the love which give meaning to their lives. n Mary Whipple
