The most remarkable thing about “Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha,” however, is that Doyle gets the tone just right: There’s no melodrama here, no false tears, no moralizing, no Dickensian uplift. This novel, oddly, is more serious, for Doyle-who knows a thing or two about children, having taught school in Dublin for 14 years-understands the extreme seriousness of childhood for those experiencing it. Paddy is a very ordinary boy going through very ordinary experiences, and that’s exactly what makes “Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha” so good-Doyle’s finding the magic, significance and gravity inherent in pre-adolescent teasing, neighborhood clubs, petty shoplifting and schoolyard fights with former best friends.ĭoyle is a fine humorist and an essentially romantic one, as he showed in his Barrytown Trilogy (the novels “The Commitments,” “The Snapper” and “The Van”).
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