132,956
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
|summary=Roddy Doyle writes men's lives in a series of perfectly observed short stories. It's frequently amusing and never less than perfectly observed.
}}
I've often wondered what goes through an author's mind the next time they sit down to write after winning a major literary prize. Does it put undue pressure on an author, thinking that they will have to write something equally as good or better next time around? Some writers can wilt under the pressure and future offerings are derided by critics as 'not as good as (insert title here)'. But some thrive under the weight of expectation and continue to write wonderful stories. 1993 Booker Prize winner [[Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle|Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha]] falls firmly into this latter category.
Doyle's latest is ''Bullfighting'', a collection of stories about life in Ireland. Indeed, to call them stories is almost to damn them with faint praise, as they're really more than stories, more like little slices of life that just happened to be written down. They have a quality about them that is so immediately familiar that in reading them you can almost visualise the people and wouldn't be at all surprised to pass them in the street.
