A STAR
CALLED HENRY BY RODDY
DOYLE
Two differing reviews of Roddy Doyle's latest novel by
Michael O'Brien and Paul Dillon. This book can be found on the 2nd
Floor of the Main Library, Ref No. 823/IR DOY
A Star Called Henry marked a new departure for Roddy
Doyle who until now has concentrated on novels portraying
contemporary life in Dublin.
by Michael O'Brien
The story; told mostly in the first person, is of the life of
Henry Smart born at the turn of the century in Dublin's inner
city; From a very early age he lives independently of his parents
with his younger brother Victor, his father disappearing from the
scene, wanted by the police for murder, and his mother simply
giving up on life, ground down by poverty and grief. Henry and
Victor, now homeless, survive on a life of petty crime. The
poverty we see is described casually through the eyes of a child
as if it is just an incidental detail of Henry's life. His
childhood misery culminates in the death of Victor from
tuberculosis.
From here the story quickly jumps forward to the GPO and the 1916
Easter rising. In the intervening time Henry had drifted into
politics through meeting James Connolly during the 1913 lockout
and later joining the Irish Citizen Army; Doyle effectively
brings to life key historical figures, Connolly and Michael
Collins in particular. Naturally the conversations they and
others are involved in with Henry are fictionalised but Doyle
makes their personalities consistent with their politics. Henry
half consciously illustrates that the type of Ireland that
Connolly and the ICA are fighting for differs from that of Pearse
and the Volunteers/IRA. Whereas the ICA had "... all been
made by Connolly and Larkin. They'd been told that they mattered,
that things could be different...[that] we could change the world"
(page 127), the Volunteers are devout, genteel "mammies boys".
When things look grim in the GPO the Volunteers call for heavenly
intervention:
'And, behind me ...my fellow revolutionaries, were on their knees
-and they'd been on them and off them alll day
their heads bowed and their cowering backs to the barricades.
What sort of country were we going to create?" (page 112).
Tensions come to the surface when the poor loot the shops during
a lull in the fighting:
"An outraged voice beside us cried out.
-They're Irish shops they're robbing!
-It's all Irish property! -It'll still bbe Irish after it is taken.
Without saying anything, without even looking at one another, we
-the Citizen Army men -suddenly knew thaat we would have to
protect the people outside. My barrel still faced the street but
I was ready to turn it on the Volunteers who were itching to save
Irish property"' (page 114)
The defeat of the rising and the execution of Connolly sees Henry
drifting away from politics to pursue issues in his personal life
and work on the docks. However his past soon catches up with him
and again the story jumps forward and we find Henry travelling
the countryside, organising the newly formed IRA, working under
Collins' direction both in preparation for the war of
independence and later as key assassin of the G men (intelligence
agents) based in Dublin Castle.
Class politics play no part in Henry's life now and no mention is
made of the huge strike movements taking place at this time.
However, we do see the hostility of some of Henry's superiors,
right wing nationalists, to socialism and the labour movement
which rankles him:
"The unions are there to deflect us, he said. -Larkin's an
Englishman. We don't need or want their unions. Or Labour. If you
want that, well, Russia's the place for you. This is a fight for
all Irishmen, not just a couple of west Britons.
What was I doing there? There was a portrait of Connolly, another
west Briton, on the wall behind Archer." (Page 182)
Their vision for a free Ireland is spelt out in an episode
involving the appropriation of a consignment of pigs destined for
Britain. They were about to be brought down to an Irish owned
slaughterhouse:
"Somewhere in the excitement ...J remembered my time in
Liberty Hall. I looked at the sharp angry cheekbones of the women
we passed and the skinny; meatless legs of the children who ran
beside us
-We should give this bacon out to the peeople, I said to Jack as I
steered the cart onto Patrick Street.
-No, Henry he said. Not a good idea. We don't want to interfere
with internal trade or anything like that. What we want to do is
show everyone that we can run our own country. We have to show
the factory owners and the rest of them that these things will go
on without the English." (Page 178)
As the War of Independence grinds on Henry is increasingly used
as a tool for liquidating figures of opposition. One past
acquaintance of Henry's, a trade union man who was forced like
many after the lockout to join the British army during the first
World War, raises points of difference but is slammed and
criticised for what circumstance forced upon him. Later Henry is
ordered to kill him. A close friend of Henry, Mr. Climanis, is
murdered on the spurious grounds of him being a spy when he is in
fact just a Jewish refugee from Latvia. When confronting his
superiors about Climanis' disappearance their racism comes out in
the open:
"I wouldn't have had the bastard bumped off just because he
was a Jew. But listen here while you are sitting there. We have
nearly got rid of the English. And we want no more strangers in
our house. Those guys, the pedlars and the moneylenders, your
poor little friends with no country of their own, they're roaming
the country getting the small farmers into hock. Ready to take
the land off them when the time comes. They're all set. Just when
we're rid of the English we'll have new masters." (Page 325)
These events dishearten Henry and eventually lead to his break
with Collins and the IRA.
"We needed trouble makers and very soon now we'll have to be
rid of them. And that, Henry is all you ever were."
With the justification of creating a capitalist Ireland, the
right wing nationalists perpetuated poverty. The foretaste of
corruption as well as their racism was there at the birth of the
Irish Free State. The reader cannot help but draw the link with
the Ireland of today as was surely Doyle's intention.
This novel will probably never be as popular as The Commitments,
and the subsequent Barrytown Trilogy, although some of their
comedy has been retained. For the political points alone, as well
as the authentic and well researched portrait of a working class
life, it is worth a read. A Star Called Henry is the first part
of a trilogy entitled The Last Roundup. Hopefully we won't have
to wait too long for the sequel
There's no good reason why a socialist
should recommend a bad book just because it contains some
political truth.
By Paul Dillon
Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry is set in Ireland, mostly in
Dublin, from the beginning of the twentieth century through the
1913 Lockout, the Easter Rising, and the War of Independence. It
takes the form of the reminiscences of a Dublinman, Henry Smart,
a young Citizen Army member who later joins the IRA. The
political and social background is essentially true -Henry and
his family struggle for survival in the appalling poverty of the
city's tenements, where children's deaths are an every- day
occurrence.
Class divisions, later written out of the official version of the
independence struggle, are central to the story. Within Sinn Fein
and the IRA, social climbers and crooked gombeen politicians
consciously or unconsciously make use of the patriotism of the
majority: The Dublin slum-dwellers are despised and are not
considered "Irish " enough. They are useful to the
aspiring political elite, but are expendable; they are destined
to have no political role in the new Ireland.
The author's descriptive style is often vivid, and the story
rattles along at a lively pace. The early childhood sections are
the best. But as politics enters the story; it all goes wrong.
While the hero whacks his enemies over the head with his father's
old wooden leg, Doyle shows as much subtlety in making his
politics points. Politically convenient speeches are forced into
the characters' mouths; contrived scenes are patched together.
Everything has to be spelled out. The characters are mostly
cardboard, black or white, heroes or villains; all very cosy;
making for easy moral judgements. The book's sex scene in the GPO
may be famous, but the dialogue between Doyle's shallow
stereotypes during the Rising is far more ridiculous.
Unfortunately this is the kind of historical novel where the hero
meets all the famous names. Here, James Connolly is a saint with
no human weaknesses; of course he is seen through the eyes of
Henry Smart, but there are better ways to express admiration for
a character. De Valera and Pearse are predictably ridiculed; that
is, not the real Pearse, who supported the workers in 1913, but
Pearse reduced to the pious poet, who like the other "1916
poets", Doyle seems to have come to know and detest via the
Christian Brothers.
The book is full of cheap shots based much too obviously on
Doyle's retrospective views. Be warned; it gets sillier as it
goes along: Michael Collins inevitably enters the action, along
with the usual clichés, the loveable rogue, blah, blah, blah.
Meanwhile Henry's new wife, a Gaelic League teacher, runs amuck
in Tipperary with a machine gun.
This book has been ridiculouslv over-praised in the press as a
great work of satire. Despite the claims of the publisher's
blurb, politically; there is nothing worthwhile here that wasn't
said a long time ago, for example in Sean O'Casey's controversial
autobiographies, a firsthand (though sometimes imaginative)
account of these times.
Despite some grim scenes, A Star Called Henry is little more than
a mediocre boy's adventure story intertwined with a political
pamphlet. Even if the annoying constant exaggeration can be put
down to the narrator's storytelling, the intrusion of the
author's political formula becomes predictable, and the story
becomes less and less believable as it goes along.
Although light entertainment remains Doyle's forte, his "trademark
humour" is often snide and irritatingly manufactured.
Nevertheless the political point of view here might still be a
revelation to some readers, although once you know the author's
angle there are no surprises.