Customer Reviews

Snapper

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4 star:		(4)
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I recently read "The Snapper" as a part of the Barrytown trilogy, and found Doyle's prose as I always have -- fast paced and incredibly honest. For me, and Im sure other readers, its Doyle's honesty that evokes so much emotion and reflects the depth of the culture he writes about. I couldn't help but feel a part of the family as I witnessed the Rabbitte family's difficulty in accepting Sharon's pregnancy. Doyle's characters aren't shallow - they're so honest you wouldn't be surprised if they walked in your front door and asked you down to the local pub for a pint. If harsh language is a problem for you, perhaps you should stick with more sheltered literature that refuses to tell the truth about real life. Another success for Doyle.

After having read both "The Commitments" and "The Snapper", I now feel as a part of the crazy, confused and wonderfully human Rabbitte family. Roddy Doyle has a great way of almost understating when he writes. The tone is warm, human and tragi-comic - these characters are real, they are everyday people with "loves and hates and problems just like mine", thus making the book a loving and heartfelt celebration of your average lower-class Irish family. And another thing: the dialogue is "bleedin brilliant!"

After watching the film "The Snapper" over 100 times in my life time I figured it was time to read the book. The film is great ... the book is excellent.

Sharon gets herself "up the pole" at 19. She is too embarrassed to tell anyone who the father is so she tell's everyone, including her own family it is a "Spanish Sailor". However, rumor has it that her "Spanish Sailor" is more than likely the fat, ugly short man from across the street!

The story highlights the local gossip surrounding Sharons pregnancy, how her family & friends try to suss out who she's "having it for" and how Sharon herself deals with it all.
The script is mostly dialogue, it is a refreshing change!

Every page guarentees you to laugh out load. I couldnt put it down. The storyline is excellent, the frequent vulgar language making it more and more realistic. I love the whole "tell it as it is" attitude. This book is hilarius and I would highly recommend it to anyone

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958 and saw his first novel, "The Commitments", published in 1987. It was later adapted for the big screen, a version that saw Star Trek's Colm Meaney and a very young Andrea Corr among the cast. "The Snapper" was firs published in 1990 and is the second book in his "Barrytown Trilogy".

Where "The Commitments" followed Jimmy Rabbite's attempts to bring soul "back" to Dublin, he takes a back seat in "The Snapper". (He now hopes to be a famous DJ, rather than a manager or a drummer - an ambition that quickly earns him the nickname "Larry Gogan". You'll probably need to have spent little time in Ireland to catch that one... ). Instead, the starring roles go to his sister, Sharon, and his father, Jimmy Senior. The book opens with Sharon in a horrible situation : twenty years old, still living at home and three months pregnant, she's breaking the 'bad' news to her parents. She's decided not to name the father - though, there's plenty of speculation, suggestion and rumour over the following six months. Some of it is embarrassingly close to the mark, and causes her no end of trouble. While Sharon's pregnancy obviously isn't easy for her, it also puts Jimmy Snr through the mill - shock, concern, embarrassment and anger. He even, briefly, casts himself as her champion in defending her honour.

A very enjoyable and easily book - it's also a good deal better than "The Commitments". While the language is (authentically) 'colourful', it's generally a good-natured book and there's plenty of humour. (However, some of the humour may be lost if you're not familiar with the Irish dialect). Well worth reading.

Soon after a wild night at the pub, twenty-year-old Sharon Rabbitte of north Dublin finds herself expecting a little "snapper" by an older man she loathes. Her refusal to name the father sets in motion a family drama involving her three brothers, two sisters, and her parents, along with her employers and all her friends. Though Sharon is often coarse and earthy, she is still a remarkably sensible young woman, and she soon discovers who her friends really are. Some people tease and torment her, some make remarks to her siblings, some force her father to take direct action in her defense, and all spread gossip.

Sharon's father reveals an emotional range from outrage toward Sharon for embarrassing the family to tender concern as her time draws near. As the eight-member family trips all over each other emotionally (ironically symbolized in their battles for the one bathroom, often occupied by Sharon), the tensions within the family grow more intense. Widespread speculation about who the father is disrupts the neighborhood, with some hotheads visiting their own brand of justice on the family. The arrival of the baby offers a chance at resolution.

The second (after The Commitments) in Roddy Doyle's The Barrytown Trilogy, this novel also focuses on the Rabbitte family and is set in the working class tenements of rowdy north Dublin, where humor and family togetherness are often the qualities which enable the characters to survive. In this novel, the action focuses on a single member of this family and the chain of action set in motion by her pregnancy. More intimate, more personal, and more emotionally moving, than The Commitments, this novel shows admiration for Sharon's stalwart behavior under the pressures of family, friends, and neighborhood.

Dialogue is spot-on, with Doyle's use of dialect controlling the pace and giving vibrancy to the story, so much so that this resembles a play as much as a novel. His focus on one Catholic family of eight people reveals the strengths which enable them to survive and even thrive. With the pub as family's social center, we see the characters' attitudes toward sex and childbirth, their "escapes" from the workday, their daily amusements and sense of humor, and their lack of concern with the dogma of the church. Both humorous and touching, the novel shows Doyle's growth from a writer who depends on neighborhood atmosphere, quirky dialogue, and fast-paced humor for effects to a writer who is willing to convey warmth and build sincere feeling for his characters. n Mary Whipple

When I started reading the book, the beginning seemed a little boring to me and I asked myself if I would be able to finish the novel. But I kept reading and it got better with every page. If you have once involved yourself in the story, it is interesting to see how things will develop.
The book is about 20year old Sharon who is pregnant after she was raped by the father of one of her best friends. This sounds very serious but author Roddy Doyle manages to keep a certain humour in the novel. It isn't dark and sad. It is funny and interesting. The reader can follow the development of Sharon's pregnancy and the following changes. You can easily identify with her and her situation and that also makes the development so interesting. There are of course also serious moments when Sharon is afraid and doesn't know how to go on. But then there are also the funny moments for example when her father, who normally is a hard man, starts to read a book about pregnancies and is finally interested in this after having become a father six times.
The story is sometimes predictable but it also has it's surprising changes. The end appears a little abrupt. It ends at the point where Sharon finally has her baby and that leaves some open questions.
But all in all it was really worth reading it, because it is an interesting story and you also learn something about the lives of working class people in Dublin.

Ask anyone? I'm tough.
So when I tell you this book caused me to cry, it surely carries some weight.
They were real tears too, albeit of laughter. Salty streams of mirth coursing down my cheeks every few pages and causing me great embarrassment and endangering my manly image.
The first Roddy Doyle book I read annoyed me. With his absence of quotation marks I couldn't work out what was dialogue and what was merely thought. Plus, it wasn't a very happy book.
That style continues with this book, but as long as you have some compassion, a bit of life experience and a healthy sense of humour, it is well worth sticking with on this one.

Doyle sticks to dialogue to give us the story of Sharon Rabbitte, pregnant and unmarried, and her father Jimmy's efforts to deal with the repercussions, real and imagined, of this event. Doyle finds a rhythm right from the start, with each character being given distinctive voice, from Jimmy's bluster and compassion to Sharon's mixture of self pity and strength, each dealing with events in a very real, funny, and human way. the supporting cast all stand out as individuals, the long suffering mother and the whole Rabbitte clan all have their moments, but the heart of the novel is Jimmy's relationship with his daughter.There is a real sense of paternal love here, and while this novel is a bit slight, it has impact and enough humor for a book twice its length.

It's not easy to be pregnamt, and single, but especially if you can't say who the father is! Sharon Rabbitte is a wonderful main character with all sorts of Irish spunk. The story hysterical, even for such a subject. I couldn't put it down

Doyle is fabulous. Writes in dialect, though, so not for everyone. If you like Irish humor, get the Barrytown Trilogy instead (which includes The Commitments and The Van, in addition).