Book review: It doesn’t leave you for days

The first Roddy Doyle novel I read was Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, which I was reasonably sure I liked, but couldn’t be certain about because much of the Irish dialect passed me by and I was convinced I hadn’t grasped at least half the book.

It didn’t help that shortly afterwards, I read a column by the late Alan Coren, the writer I consider the second funniest in the world after the late PG Wodehouse, in which he claimed that he never could be sure of the title of the book: was it Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, or Roddy Doyle Ha Ha Ha? This immediately instilled further doubts in my head about both Paddy Clarke and Roddy Doyle, so that might have been the end of my Doyle affair, if, a few years later, I hadn’t given myself a stern lecture about reading and maturity, whereupon I bravely bought a copy of Doyle’s The Commitments and have remained firmly committed to the author ever since.

This commitment means that I buy every book Doyle writes. It doesn’t, however, mean that I like every book Doyle writes. There have been a few I left unfinished because they simply didn’t work for me. Most of his books, however, I more than like. I love! But I’m not sure exactly where on a scale ranging from “could not finish” to “damn, I wish I hadn’t read this so I could read it for the first time again” Doyle’s latest book, Smile, fits.

I bought the book regardless of the reviews of it that I had read online. I did note the reviews however: they called Smile “different” from Doyle’s other books. So I was prepared for anything from the first page onwards, when middle-aged Victor Forde steps into his new life as a single man, having been asked by Rachel, his celebrity wife, to get out of her life.

Into this new life steps Edward Fitzpatrick, a crass, bloated man in a pink shirt and shorts that show more of his anatomy than is necessary. Victor runs into Edward at his new ‘regular’ pub, and is not pleased to be recognised as a former school mate; the only reason he remembers Fitzpatrick at all is because he once had a crush on his sister – and Fitzpatrick even had to remind him of that.

Thanks to Fitzpatrick, Victor remembers more of his schooldays than he would like to. His school, run by Ireland’s Christian Brothers, was a harsh place: because of the inviolate place of the Catholic Church in the country, the Brothers could do anything to the boys they taught, and know their victims would do anything to hide what was being done to them.

Victor first realised he was attractive to some of the Brothers in his first year at the school, when Brother Murphy, who taught French, said to a room full of boys begging to be let off homework, “Victor Forde, I can never resist your smile”. There was no homework that day, but Victor became a person to be bullied in everyone’s eyes. Not that Victor was worried. That was the way of the school; he could suck it up and get on with his life.

But there was one incident that Victor couldn’t get out of his head though he didn’t let it bother him much: the time he was physically molested by the school’s Head Brother.

Victor’s memories of school lead to memories of his life after school, as a speaker unafraid to share his opinions on any issue. He’s also known as an author, though he’s never actually written a book. And he remembers his life with Rachel, a woman he couldn’t have imagined he’d ever be with, but… well, love can truly break barriers.

As he recalls his past, Victor lives in the present, making new friends, and even meeting Fitzpatrick now and then, despite the fact that he really does not like his old school mate. And then, one night, because of Fitzpatrick, Victor’s whole life blows up and shatters into fragments that he may never be able to put together again.

Up to chapter 14, the book’s last chapter, I was indifferent to what I was reading. I may even have put Smile on the “did not finish” pile if I hadn’t committed a review. Never mind that there seemed to be nothing “different” about the book, what really bothered me was how dreary and washed out the writing appeared compared with Doyle’s other books, all of which, for all their faults (if any), have been nothing but vibrantly alive.

But then I got to chapter 14, which began in the same dreary way as the rest of the book – but got increasingly more bizarre as it continued, till finally it ended with something I cannot write about here without giving away the whole story. All I can say is that it had me spluttering. And days later, writing this review, I still have my jaw dropped to the floor.

Is it worth reading a not exactly exhilarating book purely for the imaginative explosiveness of its last chapter – even knowing that said last chapter would not have any effect if you hadn’t ploughed through the 13 chapters before it? I’m not sure. All I know is that it will be a long time before I get Smile out of my head.