I Hate Your Rotten Guts: The Guts

Twenty years ago, Roddy Doyle made me laugh and cry with Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha. It was entertaining, and heartfelt. It was fresh and moving. His most recent work, The Guts, basically just made me cry...with frustration.

How can I describe my frustration? This novel was like picking up a beautiful looking peach. You know the kind that you can almost taste from it's sheer beauty...you just know you are going to love it. But then you bite into the luscious fruit, only to find you have a pithy mouthful of bland, dry pulp? Disappointing eh? Yeah well, that pretty much sums it up for me.

Page upon page of one line dialogues, between god know's which characters. It was absolutely frustrating to follow the conversations. I had to trace back over the one liners to figure out who was grunting what. The language is clearly local Irish slang, and that in itself left me asking if all families tell each other to "fuck off" regularly. Perhaps this novel works better if read as a script. Maybe Doyle wrote it with the hope of it being picked up as a screenplay. Maybe Doyle figured he'd make it easier on an editor and just make it a pseudo novel/screenplay mess.

Not sure. In the beloved words of Doyle: "It was shite from start to finish."

Turn the fan on first if you plan on reading this pile of crrrrapppp!