Rating: 
Summary: EXTRAORDINARY READING AND STORY
Review: This extraordinarily rich tale of young Henry Smart, from his birth in 1901 to age 20, is made even richer by the lyric reading of Roddy Doyle. Henry, son of a one-legged bouncer and hit-man, is the couple's third child and the first to live through infancy. He suffers the quintessential poverty-stricken Irish childhood described rather frequently in current fiction, but he is also a "star" in his mother's eyes. Forsaken by his father before his double digit year, young Henry is on his own and on the streets. Yet he contains such a zest for life and is imbued with so strong a heart that he becomes one of the more endearing protagonists in recent years.
Rating:
Summary: EXTRAORDINARY READING AND STORY
Review: This extraordinarily rich tale of young Henry Smart, from his birth in 1901 to age 20, is made even richer by the lyric reading of Roddy Doyle. Henry, son of a one-legged bouncer and hit-man, is the couple's third child and the first to live through infancy. He suffers the quintessential poverty-stricken Irish childhood described rather frequently in current fiction, but he is also a "star" in his mother's eyes. Forsaken by his father before his double digit year, young Henry is on his own and on the streets. Yet he contains such a zest for life and is imbued with so strong a heart that he becomes one of the more endearing protagonists in recent years.
Rating:
Summary: Irish Literature, Yes Literature
Review: This is a really good work of fiction. Just don't expect one of Doyle's gently humorous looks at the lives of working-class Irish people, like his Barrytown trilogy. This novel deals with the eventful first twenty years of the life of Henry Smart, the son of Henry Smart Senior. Senior is a whorehouse bouncer in early 1900's Dublin, and becomes a part-time murderer for the mysterious Alfie Gandon, whom he never meets. He eventually abandons his family, and their slide into desperate poverty and the decline of his wife is described in haunting detail. Henry Junior leaves home to fend for himself, assisted by his little brother Victor, who dies from consumption. Henry Junior then becomes involved with the Republican Movement, not because he is a staunch Republican, but because he is hoping for a better, more socially just, Ireland. He becomes a crack Republican assassin in an increasingly dirty war, and eventually realises that he is serving a new, shadowy elite, one of whom is the same Alfie Gandon his father used to serve. In the process Doyle makes a number of telling points about "liberation" movements, points not only applicable to the Irish experience. Three of the most important are:
1. Such movements are often mythologised/idealized, with the myth serving to hide skeletons in the cupboard.
2. The leaders of a liberation movement easily form a new elite, intent on amassing wealth and not serving the common people.
3. The footsoldiers in a liberation struggle are dispensable, and often do not gain from the struggle.
But this is not a pedantic novel, and can be read for enjoyment as well. I would rate it as one of Doyle's best two novels to date, on a par with the excellent "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors". My only gripe with the novel is that Henry is just too perfect a specimen of manhood given that he grows up on the streets of Dublin. A street kid of 14 who stands 6 feet tall and possesses enormous strength? Only possible in fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: How Revolutions Eat Their Children
Review: Those having enjoyed "the Barrytown Trilogy" and "Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha", will find this work an abrupt departure from the style and tone of Doyle's earlier works. Though the other novels incorporate a degree of light heartedness and humor, they are also include substantical characteristically melancholy Irish personal interactions. However, this book's following "The Woman Who Walked into Doors" will lead Doyle devotees to conclude that the author has moved to focus on darker, more morose depictions of human behavior. While Doyle's other works are easy reads, surreal aspects of the first part of this book, wraught with symbolism, challenge the ability to "get into it" or to sustain interest. This section focuses on the seamy, unsavory, and just plain revolting aspects of Dublin slum life in the late nineteenth century. I found that the overstatement not only left me with a queasy feeling but undermined the reality of what Doyle attempted to portray. The remainder of the novel is both educational and insightful. Those lacking familiarity with the Irish Easter Rebellion and subsequent civil war will probably have difficulty appreciating what is being described and conveyed. However, despite a considerably amount of distracting hyperbole (e.g.: Henry's superhuman height, strength, maturity, sexual prowess) the book offers some profound observations which transcend the period and events being described. Doyle accurately describes the Irish revolution as being only a revolt, where the British bureaucracy and petty bourgeoise was replaced by a nearly identical Irish counterparts, and that the opportunity for such superficial changes was what motivated many in the Irish uprising. He reflects how access to power subverts guiding principles (if they ever in fact existed) corrupts those who might have initially been led by noble objectives, and prompts colleagues to ruthlessly abandon and attempt to crush former comrades who might now stand in the way of their material advancement. Apt, but chilling and depressing observations on government, society and human relations. This is a powerful book, but the excessive overstatement, symbolism, and hyperbole detract from the profound and crucial observations.
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