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Rory & Ita
by Roddy Doyle
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Viking Adult (2002-11-11)
ISBN: 0670032042
EAN: 9780670032044
Dewey Decimal #: 823.914
Hardcover: 288 pages
Release Date: 2002-11-11
SKU: 101708000138
Condition: Very Good
Comments: 0670032042 New, never read, may have minor wear on cover.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
"Rory & Ita", Roddy Doyle's first non-fiction book, tells - largely in their own words - the story of his parents' lives. They remember every detail of their Dublin childhoods - the people, the politics, idyllic times in the Wexford countryside for Ita, Rory's apprenticeship as a printer. By the time they out down a deposit of two hundred pounds for a house in Kilbarrack, Rory was working as a compositor at the Irish Independent. By the time the first of their four children was born, he'd become a teacher at the School of Printing in Dublin. Kilbarrack began to change, and Ireland too. Through their eyes, we see the intensely Catholic society of their youth being transformed into the vibrant, modern Ireland of today.
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Customer Reviews
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They are just not that interesting
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-03-08
Rory and Ita strike me as nice people who have worked hard; I just wish I could say they led lives that I found interesting. I admire Doyle for honoring his parents this way, but to put it bluntly, this was boring. Growing up, finding work, finding each other, a story that's been told a million times and most of the time in more interesting ways than can be found in this book. After 338 pages, Rory and Ita still remain ciphers, there's no real emotional depth on display; it's just the story of two people who led ordinary lives. That concept can often lead to a wondrous work of art, just not this time.
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Still waters
Rating  (4)
Date: 2006-11-21
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Since the other reviews here don't touch on what I see as the strengths of this book, here's my take.
Roddy Doyle's first work of non-fiction is a low-key but deeply felt paean to his parents (and by extension life in mid-twentieth-century Dublin) in their own words. In alternating chapters, Rory and Ita Doyle tell of their immediate ancestors (including their own parents), their childhoods, meeting and marriage, and their life as a married couple, including seeing their children leave the nest as they ease into retirement. Details accumulate and create a pointillistic portrait of two people enmeshed in a large network of family and community ties, many less than idyllic, and of a group of lives lived with affection and a kind of quiet but ceaseless vigor.
Real tragedy is a thread that runs through the book: Ita's own mother died when she was very young, and one of her children lived only a day. Her comment at the very end of the book is stoic but not self-dramatizing, and all the more moving for it.
And the turbulent larger world is not ignored, but seen mostly in how it affects the family. Rory and Ita began life in what was essentially a nineteenth century world, and end this story in the twenty-first. The continuity of their lives, their sense of wonder at the new tempered by a sardonic sense that everything fresh must be evaluated carefully, makes their discussion of everything from Fred Astaire movies to the Internet interesting.
The larger world also figures in other ways. Mentioned often, the violent history of Ireland, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, affects the choices made, not to mention the choices available, to many of the people mentioned. But as with American books about "the greatest generation," a key point is that those involved in the struggle knew what they were fighting for: the opportunity to go home and live what are, after all, ordinary lives. The anonyms who constitute the vast majority of all humans who have lived anywhere on this planet are by implication the real subjects of this book. And, perhaps, this book may also serve as a reminder that passion need not be fierce to be strong.
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If you lose your job,it's the boat to England...
Rating  (5)
Date: 2004-02-07
3 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
I've read all of Roddy Doyle's books,and no doubt about it,this one is totally different.
This is not a book about Roddy,as a matter of fact it is not really a book by Roddy at all.
This is a book by Rory and Ita Doyle and about their lives and the lives of their parents,grandparents,families and friends.Not only it is written through their eyes and by them,Roddy is hardly even mentioned .His only involvement would seem to have been the catalyst between his parents and the publishers to make the book happen.
Having said that,I found it a very well written and interesting read.It beautifully desceibes the lives,hopes,trials,tribulations,joys,sadness,struggles,family relations,friends,working,religious and all the other things involved in living in Ireland;during most of the 20th.Century.
In many ways it was not all that different where I grew up in Nova Scotia,where many were of Irish and Scottish descent.
In both places,as well as the rest of Europe and America,things were tough,jobs were hard to find,money was tight,but people survived,and in many ways were just as happy as today.
My parents were born about 20 years earlier than Rory and Ita, and went through much the same things that they did working,creating a home and raising a family.I suppose that the biggest difference was that WW1 and WW2 affected things much differently here and The War of Independence certainly had profound effects there.But, inspite of those events ,life went on.
Therefore;as a book that describes the way life went on throughout the 20th Century for a middle class family in Ireland,it is excellent.Wouldn't every family love to have one?It seems to me it would be a much more treasured heirloom than Great Grandmothers drop-leaf table.
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2 and a half, really
Rating (2)
Date: 2002-11-23
11 out of 14 customers found this reveiw helpful
Sorry to say this makes two disappointing ones in a row for the otherwise terrific Roddy Doyle.Here he essentially transcribes and edits his parents' memoirs. I couldn't help thinking what a great present this book is for his family. By the same token, this oral history doesn't contain a story that will knock the reader out. This criticism comes in spite of the facts that I can't help liking his parents and it was presented coherently. Predictably, the author's family background pales significantly to his characters'. That I should have counted on.
Alternately, Kevin Kearns' often hilarious oral history series on pre-WWII inner-Dublin is definitely worthwhile.
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