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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
O Stop This Thing...,
By Charity "charity123" (Canterbury, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Oh, Play That Thing (Volume 2 of The Last Roundup) (Hardcover)
After such a brilliant start to his trilogy with 'A Star Called Henry', Doyle disappoints. Henry in my mind is a character that must remain forever young, daring, charismatic; not a poor, trodden, maimed, middle-aged man who, despite living about 20 years in America, ends up in pretty much the exact state in which he was in at the end of the first book. While some of the sense of adventure still clearly remains, I finished the book somewhat disappointed. Doyle's writing was often confusing; he seems to think that endless dialogues will compensate for his lack of even a few sentences to establish ambiance. Characters, while vivid, did not carry quite the same power as they did in 'A Star Called Henry'. Flashbacks, in which excerpt from the former are repeated, stand out as better writing than the stuff that surrounds it. And, as I said, Henry, by the end of the novel, has grown too much in too short a space. A 300-page book made our hero age nearly 25 years, when his every adventure could be made into a separate book. A beginning that held potential; but Henry, who has slept with about every woman in town despite promising to only truly love his wife has become a man who is impertinent, but not charmingly so. A young fighting Irish hero, in a very short space, becomes an old, depressingly beat, and almost - gasp - dull man.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, say it ain't so!,
By
This review is from: Oh, Play That Thing (Volume 2 of The Last Roundup) (Hardcover)
I was mesmerized by A Star Called Henry, so I expected the same passionate, magical, heartbreaking storytelling with Oh, Play That Thing. Instead, I found myself disconnected, confused, incredulous, and downright disappointed much of the time.
The writing itself is incredible, and Henry is still the hero who alternately flutters and tears apart your heart, but the plot is just about impossible to follow - or believe. Henry goes from one over-the-top situation to the next, and the coincidences leave you scratching your head. And his incredible, complicated, timeless love for his wife - which drove the plot and the pace of the first novel - takes the backseat much of the time. Yes, Henry is far away and yes, he is a Casanova with an unquenchable thirst, but he conveniently leaves all that passion and pain behind, save for the occasional line or two that Roddy Doyle seems to offer up to forgive Henry's forgetting. In the end, I felt like I'd missed half the points the novel was trying to make, and Henry Smart became more of a cheap pawn than a complex character. He became a whole new, impossible-to-believe character, with barely a link to the boy we first met. I can't imagine where the next novel will take us, although it looks like Henry will see his name in lights after all. I'd trade in all that flash for one more dirty, gritty story of the real MacCoy.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Story in the finest Irish (and American) Traditions,
By
This review is from: Oh, Play That Thing (Last Roundup) (Hardcover)
"Oh, Play That Thing," is the followup to "A Star Called Henry" and is entirely complementary to the first part of this three part trilogy. I can't wait for part 3. The characters in these first two parts of the trilogy are unique but oh so fitting to the best (and worst) of Irish and American cultures and mythology. Love the tie in with Louis Armstrong, New York, Chicago, and other places (not to spoil the story before you read it). Roddy Doyle has a great ear and ability to write dialogue fitting of places and time. He combines the toughness of life with the greatness of life in people who live it fully and then some. Really enjoyed this book, and before it A Star Called Henry and can't wait for the next and final in the trilogy.
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