Critical Mick

Reviews Free of Rules.

Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

A Star Called Henry
Roddy Doyle
Vintage, 2000

A Wooden Leg Paddy Whacker? That's Smart, Actually.

I saw The Commitments in the Savoy Cinema on O'Connell Street soon after arriving in Ireland for the first time. It's notable even fifteen years later. That flick was a fantastic introduction to Dublin's voices, character, music, hopes and failures. Grand stuff altogether, right so. The man behind the commitments is of course Roddy Doyle.

Alright Roddy ya buck. You can do Dublin, but can you capture its history? I had my doubts. History's a passion of mine.

For a generation every Irish man claimed to have been in the GPO with Pearse and Connolly and Collins during the Easter Rising of 1916. The place would have been bursting with fledgling politicians and drunks. Why not have a fictional character in there too? Imaginary soldiers don't take up much room.

Roddy Doyle's fictional character is young Henry Smart. He's the one whose elbow was cropped from the famous photo of the captured Eamon De Valera. He's the one who proofread the Proclamation of the Irish Republic for James Connolly and proposed the line about t"cherishing all the children of the nation equally." He trained a flying column of the IRA and served as one of Michael Collins' "twelve apostles." Henry has an almost Dualta-like knack of meeting the important historical figures of his day.

But- here's the brilliance- rather than reeling off staged political and philosophical dialogues with these figures, young Henry makes observations on their characters that are packed with such freshness, such vitality and truth. There is such truth to that. Such humanity. It's impossible for this novel not to bring these characters to life.

And- true historical, literary merit here, with valid political insight- what they stood for. A Star Called Henry revisits the formation of Ireland as an independent body. Post-Colonial foundations enough to engage Kevin Stevens. What are these women and men fighting for? What is this Irish identity that is struggling to emerge?

Make no mistake- Doyle's novel captures that. A Star Called Henry nails what it was to be Irish. In first-person immediacy; starvation, hard work, abuse, poverty, the role of religion, the people, places, voices….. Voices above all. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, The Van- Northsiders in the late 20th century were never a spot of bother for ol' Roddy. Here he gives distinct diction to Dubs, English, Culchies, foreigners and posh bastards, all a hundred years past. Nicely done!

So: in theme, voice, character and conflict we have a Portrait of Ireland as a Young Man. And a good read at that. After a colorful but slow start, the majority of the novel involves rebel action. Peter De Rosa did a fair Tom Clancy imitation with that material. A Star Called Henry carries equal tension. Even when Henry is toiling away under an assumed name on the Dublin docklands, the pages fly.

And- fair play, Roddy!- not a single cliché throughout. Every word is fresh, accurate, alive. This language is beautiful. Like Eugene McCabe, this pro makes it look easy.

My name is Critical Mick, so there's got to be some flaw that I can peck to death. Henry joins the rebellion by accident.

(But then again, so have I. Nix that.)

Back to the slow start, then. Pages and never ending pages dwell on Henry's parents. This section paints an impoverished Dublin before the Rising, and Henry Senior is as colorful a one-legged character as Adrian Lawler or Long John Silver, but critics can complain that the street Arab years before 1916 were hard long ages.

And like The Bell Jar, the narrator drops a too-telling phrase that reveals Henry will outlive all the worst the tale throws his way.

(As if readers weren't forewarned off the book's cover by "Part One of the Last Roundup")

Part Two, I gladly report, is available now. On the back of A Star Called Henry, its unlikely name is Oh, Play that Thing. If the novel is anything like the focus of this gushing review, Last Roundup 2 contains better words than its title.

In summation: I wish I was Granny Nash that I could read one book with my left finger and another with my right. Both left and right books would be A Star Called Henry. This one is a deadly buzz to read and re-read.

Roddy Doyle gets a secret message here.

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2006 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.

This Page Was Last Updated On 21 March, 2006.

You have found Critical Mick's secret TOM CLANCY RANT!

Once Tom Clancy was great. An ordinary dude who took his office typewriter home to pound away on some dreams in the evening! That's cool. The Hunt for Red October deserved to make it so big that Sean Connery would be in the movie. Go Tom! Then Red Storm Rising was a fantastic read. I read it at least three times. What fun!

Now Tom Clancy just sits back like a big fat bastard and stamps his name on bad sci-fi. He's like Danbrown but every word has a pandering right wing slant that grates my nerves like so many million-dollars cruise missiles. I don't think he even writes these books any more. If I ever becomes a Brand Name like some crappy diet aid, I hope that all the innocent airline passengers whose necks I've rammed shit down run me over slowly with a sixty ton tank.

But make it a Japanese World War II tank so rusty that Tom Clancy will never have written about it. That dude just pisses me off.