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Summary: Near Flawless Novel by Ireland's great Roddy Doyle
Review: Roddy Doyle, Ireland's great author of such works as "The Commitments" and "Paddy Clarke, HA HA HA!" has written a truly astonishing work. At once a personal narrative, a great adventure story, a horrific epic, and a comment on history itself, "A Star Called Henry" is a great read, a fun book, and a literary near-masterpiece.Set in Dublin and surrounding areas in Ireland from 1897-1920, it cronicles the first twenty years in the life of Henry Smart, a beautiful, intelligent warrior in the fight for Irish independnace. He becomes a member of the resistance at age 14, and through his eyes we see the fight to regain Ireland. Doyle's protagonist is searingly honest about himself and history. He knows that he is a cog in a great machine, but knows that he can do nothing about it. He realizes that he is at once a major part of the resistance and a totally expendable man. He is constantly reminding us how he should be in the history books, but he knows he never will be. He is our witness, but the narrative he brings is not one born out of great battles, but instead individual triumphs and failures. Roddy Doyle is not trying to synopsize history. If one wanted that, they could read any one of the many sources he lists in the back of the book. Doyle is instead personalizing history. Showing us an uncommon commoner caught up in history's tide, incapable of swimming back to shore no matter how hard he tries. Even if you have no interest in Ireland whatsoever, read this book. Hell, even if you're an Ulster Unionist read this book. It's written so compellingly and so unflinchingly that I dare you to take longer than a week to finish it.
Rating: 
Summary: Another winner for Doyle
Review: Satisfactory on all counts! Doyle has a wonderful ear for the cadence of Irish speech, a real gift for making his characters come alive on the page, and a story to tell of a remarkable young man who lives the history of Ireland during its most turbulent times. His powers of description --of the grinding poverty of the Dublin slums, especially- are masterful. In giving us a history lesson, he also tells a tale of betrayal, loyalty, honor, and love. Roddy Doyle's novels get better with each new arrival, and there will be many of us awaiting the next volume of this trilogy.
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Summary: Roddy Doyle Scores Again
Review: Roddy Doyle is his usual entertaining, intelligent and engaging self as he constructs the first part of Henry Smart's (larger-than)life. Doyle comes from a long tradition of expert storytellers,and even if the reader doesn't know much about Irish history, the tale is compelling.As a glimpse of Irish political figures, the book made me want to read up on early 20th Century Ireland. Like all of Doyle's protagonists, Henry Smart is no victim. He has an inner strength and confidence that keeps the reader cheering--even if he does engage in criminal activities like murder. I can hardly wait for the next two thirds of the series!
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Summary: Very good!
Review: This book is wonderful. It's realistic, its characters are living people (even the legends like Michael Collins and James Connolly), and the story is compelling. I didn't like the main character at first, because I felt he was a braggart and a jerk, but later on I really started to appreciate him. I'll definitely read the sequels, even though I picked this one up because it dealt with the Easter Rebellion. I gave it four stars instead of five, because I agree with one of the previous reviewers in that it requires quite some knowledge about Irish history. The casual remarks about Pears, Plunkett (and his marriage to Grace Gifford) etc. will make no sense if you have never heard of these fellows. I've heard of them, though, so it didn't really bother me.
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Summary: EXPLOSIVE LANGUAGE
Review: Doyle sentences are like sticks of dynamite, or maybe they're lit fuses for the explosion of the last line. Either way, the most admirable and memorable thing about this novel for me is his use of language. I've read PADDY CLARK and THE VAN, but I think this is his best novel so far. We've been to this Ireland before in other books, but we haven't been given the tour by Henry Smart, and it's his voice and his life that make the travelled ground seem fresh and dangerous. The last line of the novel is truly a revelation. If you haven't read it, don't look.
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Summary: Haunted by this Irish ghost
Review: The Irish life is an exuberant, cantankerous harmony with a choir of ghosts. In Eire, the past is passion and even the newest landmark looks like the oldest place you ever saw. And Roddy Doyle captures the melodic cacophony of Irish history, passion and appetite in his new novel, "A Star Called Henry." It is narrated by Henry Smart, who takes us through his first 20 years, from his birth into Dublin's savage poverty in 1901 through the romance of his naive young mother and one-legged alcoholic father. The real ghosts of Ireland's rebellion drift in the background of this novel, providing harmony to Henry's fictional life. The heady passions of Dublin and the quirks of its people are spun into the yarn so deftly the reader will actually hear a brogue in Doyle's dialogue. It's funny and moving at the same time, an Irish peculiarity. But it is also an immense story about a small island where ghosts walk among the living, just as Henry Smart walks among us, real as a Dublin fog.
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Summary: Incandescent opening not sustained
Review: The first quarter of this novel is an incredibly fierce, surreal picture of turn of the century Ireland that burrows into the reader's mind like the artificial leg that doubled as a limb and lethal weapon for the hero's father. Henry Smart is an infant with the perspective of a raging, sexual adult -- a unique and thrilling point of view. When Henry grows up and joins the IRA, you'd think that the violent colorful history that is the background for the story would enable the reader to continue the wild ride of the opening. Ironically, though, Henry's bloody history as an IRA soldier and assassin doesn't come close to matching the mind-bending expectations of the opening. Doyle shows us the forces that shaped the heart and mind of a terrorist, but we never truly empathize, perhaps because it's impossible to transcend our own abhorrence of terrorists today (including the IRA kind).
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I'm a huge fan of Roddy Doyle and was excited that there was to be a trilogy of new work - now I look forward to the trilogy being well and truly over and Doyle, hopefully, regaining his senses. Paddy Clarke and The Woman Who Walked Into Doors were wonderful, compelling, sad and funny novels, but this one left me cold.
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Summary: Irish blood and rebellion
Review: Contemporary Irish authors such as Maeve Binchey, Edna O'Brien, Frank McCourt, and Roddy Doyle have gained in popularity over the last several years, and Doyle's latest novel, A Star Called Henry, is an intense and powerful addition to this rich heritage. Doyle introduces the character of Henry Smart, bringing him from the shining miracle of his healthy birth through his childhood on the streets to early adulthood and into the dark and bloody Irish battle for independence. Even at its ugliest moments, A Star Called Henry is real and forceful and compelling, never allowing the reader to look away or dismiss the characters with pity. Through the eyes of protagonist Henry, Doyle depicts the bitter, dirty, and ugly slums of turn-of-the century Dublin, filled with disease, poverty, hunger and imminent rebellion, a rebellion that will roll through Ireland just as Henry reaches adolescence. Independent at age five, with no food or warmth or comfort to keep him at home, Henry takes to the streets and at fourteen, joins up with the Irish Rebels. Burdened with the legacies of a prematurely senile mother, a betrayed father and dead siblings, Henry throws his lot in with Michael Collins and the rebels during the Easter Rising in 1916, becoming an assassin and trainer of young countrymen. But Henry is not a character to feel badly for, as Doyle injects him with stamina and a zest for life. Doyle makes no apologies or attempts at redemption for Henry, instead chosing to stay true to Ireland's strife and violence and bringing forth a character that remains faithful to this. Even from his earliest, nameless moments in his zinc cradle, Henry struggles to come into his own and lay claim to his name and life. He is a character full of fire, driven by an iron will to endure, and to find the one woman, known only as Miss O'Shea, his counterpart in daring and character. Henry is adept at survival and adapting to the rapidly changing circumstances of Dublin in rebellion, even prospering as a member of the motley crew that is the Irish Citizen Army and becoming a trusted ally of the legendary Michael Collins. Doyle seamlessly fuses Ireland's blood-spattered history of rebellion with Henry's own brutal yet remarkable tale of poverty and survival, never becoming preachy or making excuses. He never looks away from what Henry and his counterparts must do to survive, and therein lies the brilliance. Skillfully, Doyle weaves history and fiction into a spellbinding blend, producing an unlovely but unforgettable portrait of Ireland in rebellion and the cast of characters that made it happen.
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Summary: What About Meeee?
Review: Roddy Doyle weaves a bit of the blarney with a wealth of Irish history in his amazing tale of young Henry Smart, the anything-but-average poor Irish child. Henry, an unbelievably handsome, rather vain, and seemingly indestructible young Irishman, narrates his own tale-- from pre-conception-- with complete clarity. He recounts a startling self-consciousness in the days just following his birth, already enamored with women and aware of his effect upon them. More importantly, he recalls the early cry of infancy that continues throughout his story: "What about meeee?" Indeed, what about Henry Smart the second, or third? Forced to share the name not only of his father but also of the baby who died before his arrival, our Henry is driven to prove himself a star, a real-life star far better than the celestial spark his mother identifies as her first Henry. This early-established competition takes Henry down strange and dangerous paths, most significantly to the Irish Republican Army and the Easter Uprising at the tender age of fourteen (though we have good reason to doubt his age). It is here that Doyle outdoes himself, depicting the history of Ireland's efforts toward independence within the character of Henry Smart. Proud, vain, loyal, motivated by his own hatred of the class divide--but unaware of the bigger picture-- Henry dedicates himself to the cause and becomes a pawn to men with other agendas. In the twisted path Henry travels, Doyle mirrors the changes in the IRA. And Henry's ultimate departure from that path in favor of searching out his family history and affirming his own identity-- which persists, despite the hell he lives through-- is a hopeful image of Doyle's Ireland reshaping itself in the face of those internal oppressors who replace the British. A Star Called Henry is at once a page of history, packed with pathos, and a rollicking good chunk of the blarney stone. Doyle provides the reader with ultra-real scenes of war and rebellion, then animates those scenes with an almost superhuman fourteen-year-old who is not only drop dead handsome and bulletproof, but also a water diviner, a great escape artist, and apparently the best ride in the nation. Doyle has proven himself a truly gifted storyteller in the great Irish tradition, and Henry Smart deserves a place next to the great shining stars of literary creation.
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