Roddy Doyle

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Roddy Doyle (2015 at the Berlin International Literature Festival )

Roderick Doyle (born May 8, 1958 in Dublin , Ireland ) is an Irish writer and screenwriter .

Childhood and family

Doyle grew up in Kilbarrack , County Dublin . His parents, Rory and Ita Doyle, a typesetter and instructor in the printing trade and a former hospital secretary, were liberal and open-minded by Irish standards. Roddy Doyle grew up in a "mixed" community with Protestant and Jewish friends. Rory Doyle taught his son a love of literature from an early age. Despite his great success as a writer, Roddy Doyle worked as a teacher of English and geography until the late 1990s, before giving up the profession in favor of his art. Roddy Doyle lives in Dublin with his wife Belinda and three sons.

For the article series My Writing Day for the British daily The Guardian , he described a typical working day on the occasion of the publication of his novel Smile in 2017 .

Description of the literary work (early works)

Humor as a way out of the crisis

After Doyle received the Booker Prize in 1993 for his work Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha , he was able to establish himself as the most important Irish representative of contemporary comic writing with his first five novels . Despite the seemingly cheerful scenes, the bizarre stories and the hilarious incidents of the protagonists, Doyle's characters are still internally lonely, deeply sad and desperately looking for solutions to their problems and conflicts. Laughter and humor - represented by the literary stylistic device of the comic relief - are often the only way to survive life with dignity when it threatens to sink into chaos. The hopeless existence of the protagonists is only tolerable with humor. Her sense of humor ensures that none of the characters in the novel fall into depression. The humor is essential for the characters to survive in order not to perish. An important example of the comic relief of Doyle's characters is the final scene in the novel The Snapper . Sharon Rabbitte is in the hospital holding the child she gave birth to after having drunk, unprotected sex with her friend's father for the first time. When asked worriedly by her bed neighbor if she had cried - and Sharon actually has a lot of reasons to do just that - Sharon only replies that she had laughed.

Are yeh alrigh ', love?
It was the woman in the bed beside Sharon.
Yeah, said Sharon. - Thanks; I'm grand.
She lifted her hand - it weighed a ton - and wiped her eyes.
Ah, said the woman. - Were yeh cryin '?
No, said Sharon. - I was laughin '.

(Roddy Doyle: 'The Snapper'. In: The Barrytown Trilogy. London, 1993, p. 340.)

Then the novel is over, leaving a distressed readership that has deep compassion for Sharon and hopes for them that one day they will experience justice and happiness after all.

Description of the state of the Irish working class

Roddy Doyle's early novels are deeply anchored in the Irish working class . The main themes of the first works and the focus of his literary criticism are

  • the failure of Irish men and their search for a new role in a changing Conservative Catholic society,
  • the attempt to achieve the present and the zeitgeist of the late 20th century in Ireland too and
  • the breaking up of encrusted social structures and the consequences of this breaking up for Irish society.

The Northern Ireland conflict plays a subordinate role in Doyle's early novels, or it hardly occurs, is only addressed in subordinate clauses. But then all the more haunting.

The Lord told me to come home. Ed Winchell, a Baptist reverend on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, told me. But The Lord told him to tell me. He said he was watching something on TV about the feuding Brothers in Northern Ireland and The Lord told the Reverend Ed that the Irish Brothers had no soul, that they needed some soul. And pretty fucking quick! Ed told me to go back to Ireland and blow some soul into the Irish Brothers. The Brothers wouldn't be shooting the asses off each other if they had soul.

(Roddy Doyle: The Commitments . In: The Barrytown Trilogy. London, 1993, p. 27.)

The linguistic quality of the early novels

The early novels consist almost entirely of dialogue and not so much of the description of the "inner turmoil" of the protagonists. Even the first sentences are written in dialogue form. The narrator gets straight to the point. As a result, the reader is immediately involved in the events and lives of the protagonists. Doyle describes the life of his characters as a mixture of hilarious to bizarre everyday scenes, abysmal poverty and domestic family chaos. The description of the smallest details and seemingly irrelevant matters brings the novels to life and gives an insight into everyday Irish culture and its comical twist. Example: In Ireland it is common for a photo of the Pope to be on the wall of the house . The Rabbitte family (see Barrytown Trilogy ) has a photograph of Elvis Presley instead . Doyle's comment on the declining influence of the Catholic Church as a power factor. The portrait of the Irish working class has on the one hand been highly praised by the critics and on the other hand has repeatedly been sharply criticized. Doyle was praised for offering the working class a way out of poverty and hopelessness in his novels; this path is called education. Doyle's credo: Education is the measure of all things. Those who acquire education can shape their lives better and may have better chances of surviving in the world. Many of Doyle's characters in the novel experience this. Doyle was particularly criticized for the bad language in his books, as it would allegedly show Ireland and Irish society in a bad light. Doyle uses slang words, a solid colloquial language in pointed Irish English , Gaelic curses and, in large numbers, the F-word. But it is precisely the gutter language that makes Doyle's novels authentic and understandable. Doyle describes things and people as they really are. Another stylistic device by Roddy Doyle is not only the use of the F-word, but also the explicit description that recurs in almost all novels when the characters have to vomit. Many literary scholars even interpret the occurrence of the numerous "vomit scenes" as a form of catharsis and mimesis . Example: In the short story Not Just For Christmas , the two underage brothers Danny and Jimmy Murphy went to the pub without permission, where they wanted to get drunk for the first time in their lives. Danny, the younger of the two brothers, is uncomfortable from the start. He feels guilty when they lie to the bartender about their age. He finds the smell and taste of the beer disgusting. Nevertheless, Danny bravely drinks one glass of Guinness after another. He hates it, but he doesn't want to play the fool in front of his big brother, who has always tormented and bullied him from childhood. When he gets sick, there is no more lying or escaping. Danny can no longer pretend. The vomiting is, so to speak, the description of Danny's actual condition. He is not the grown-up superhero, but an immature sixteen-year-old who does not yet fit into the adult world at all. But neither does his brother Jimmy, since he gets sick too.

They felt like men. They shared the feeling. They were growing up together. The Murphy brothers.
And Danny did get sick.
On the way home.
Outside the chipper.
He opened his mouth and all the Guinness and everything else he had ever drunk or eaten fell out of him, onto the ground.
"Oh Jesus!" he said.
He wiped his eyes. When he looked again, he saw Jimmy getting sick beside him.

(Roddy Doyle: Not Just For Christmas . Dublin, 1999, p. 21.)

Doyle himself says of his protagonists: "The lives are tough, and the language is rough, but beauty and tenderness survive amid the bleakness."

Description of the later work

Choice of subject

In the late 1990s, Roddy Doyle began to turn to other subjects. His main focus is still on the development of "Irish" characters. However, Doyle leaves the present. Describing family situations and conflicts is currently not his main topic. The novel "A Star Called Henry" is set in Dublin in the 1920s. In the novel "Oh Play That Thing" Doyle tells of Henry Smart who emigrated from Ireland to New York City in 1924.

Linguistics

The novels are no longer so heavy on dialogue. (A development that was already noticeable in "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors".) Doyle now describes situations and the milieu in which the protagonists move. Sensory impressions and sensual experiences of the characters are now expressed more descriptively . Descriptive adjectives and attributes , more main clause - subordinate clause constructions and a reduction in literal speech are now the linguistic means that Doyle uses. The thoughts and trains of thought of the characters in the novel no longer come to light mainly in dialogues and conversations with others. The interior monologue of the characters is gaining more and more influence. The language used by Doyle is still that of the 'common' people. Still is Irish English , using the F-word and the rough language of the fictional characters is an important factor that can make the novels authentic and understandable. To compare the beginning of each novel of "The Snapper" (1990) and "Oh Play That Thing" (2004):

- You're what '? said Jimmy Rabbitte Sr.
He said it loudly.
- You heard me, said Sharon.
[-]
Sharon was pregnant and she'd just told her father that she thought she was. She'd told her mother earlier, before the dinner.
[-]
- Oh - my Jaysis, said Jimmy Sr.
He looked at Veronica. She looked tired. He looked at Sharon again.
- That's shockin ', he said.
Sharon said nothing.
- Are yeh sure? said Jimmy Sr.
- Yeah. Sort of.
- Wha '?
- yeah.

(Roddy Doyle: 'The Snapper'. In: The Barrytown Trilogy. London, 1993, p. 145.)

I could bury myself in New York. I could see that from the boat as it went under the Statue of Liberty on a cold dawn that grew quickly behind me and shoved the fog off the slate-colored water. That was Manhattan, already towering over me. It made tiny things of the people around me, all gawking at the manmade cliffs, and the ranks of even higher cliffs behind them, stretching forever into America and stopping their entry. I could see the terror in their eyes.

(Roddy Doyle: Oh Play That Thing , London, 2004, p. 1.)

Works

Novels

The first three novels of Doyle are summarized under the title Barrytown Trilogy , since in these works the life of the Rabbitte family from the fictional Dublin suburb Barrytown is the focus.

  • Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993)
    • Paddy Clarke ha ha ha, German by Renate Orth-Guttmann, Frankfurt am Main, Krüger 1994, ISBN 3-8105-0431-9 .
    • Audio book: Paddy Clarke ha ha ha, same translation, read by Rufus Beck , Munich, Ullstein Hörverlag 2003, ISBN 3-550-10158-9 .
  • The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (1997)
    • The woman who ran against doors, German by Renate Orth-Guttmann, Frankfurt am Main, Krüger 1996, ISBN 3-8105-0433-5 .
  • A Star Called Henry (1999)
  • Oh, Play That Thing (2004)
  • Paula Spencer (2006)
  • The Dead Republic (2010)
    • The return of Henry Smart, German by Renate Orth-Guttmann, Munich, Vienna, Hanser 2013, ISBN 978-3-446-24329-3 .
  • Two Pints (2012)
  • The Guts (2013)
  • Smile (2017)

Short stories

Autobiography

  • Rory and Ita (2002)
    • Rory and Ita: an Irish story, German by Renate Orth-Guttmann, Munich, Hanser 2005, ISBN 3-446-20568-3 .
    • also as: Rory and Ita: the story of my parents, same translation, Frankfurt am Main. Fischer-Taschenbuch 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16775-3 .

Plays

  • Brownbread (1987)
  • War (1989)
  • The Woman Who Walked into Doors (2003)
  • New version of The Playboy of the Western World ( The Playboy of the Western World ) (2007) together Bisi Adigun

Scripts

  • Family (1994 / four-part television series, directed by Michael Winterbottom )
  • When Brendan Met Trudy (2000 / film directed by Kieron J. Walsh)
  • Rosie (2018 / film, directed by Paddy Breathnach)

Children's books

Film adaptations

Barrytown Trilogy

Web links

additional

In 2015 he was a member of the jury for The Extraordinary Book of the Children and Youth Program of the Berlin International Literature Festival .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roddy Doyle: 'Rory & Ita'. London, 2003, ISBN 0-09-944922-6 .
  2. ^ Roddy Doyle: Roddy Doyle: my work is fueled by music, mitching and mugs of green tea. In: The Guardian. September 9, 2017, accessed October 12, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Phoebe Greenwood: Roddy Doyle depicts Ireland's homeless crisis in new film Rosie. The Guardian, October 11, 2018, accessed October 12, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Just being dead is not a solution in FAZ of June 29, 2013, p. 32.
personal data
SURNAME Doyle, Roddy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Doyle, Roderick (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin , Ireland