The Barrytown Trilogy

Product Information

Although The Van (1996) premiered at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival to some favorable reviews, critical reaction was negative upon release; reviewers criticised the film for its thin material and lack of strong characterisation. In the two previous novels, there was an impervious quality about the family, but by The Van the cracks are beginning to show. the Van itself represents how friendship can sour as grown men fight and argue over the smallest of gratuities. This volume brings together under one cover Roddy Doyle's three acclaimed novels about the Rabbite family from Dublin.

The Van was the longest and went into a lot of detail as to the relationship between the redundant friends, Jimmy Sr.

But the Jimmy Sr who comes into his own in the Snapper then takes over the Van is full-fledged, a warm and rounded character to the very end. Tracy and Linda Rabbitte – the two youngest children, twin girls, who frequently behave mischievously, provoking the ire of the parents.

I laughed out loud through all three books, welled up a number of times, and recognized my own Irish family -- sometimes painfully -- on every page.

The first part "The Commitments", in my opninion, is the poorer history, The Snapper and The Van are "deeper" , The Van wins.

The focus of these two is on the Rabbitte family as a whole, whereas The Commitments only featured Jimmy Jr.The film also stars Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle, Bronagh Gallagher, Glen Hansard, Andrew Strong, Colm Meaney, and Andrea Corr. The first omnibus edition of the author's celebrated Barrytown trilogy, with the first volume appearing here in casebound format for the first time. In The Snapper, Jimmy frequently practices being a DJ, much to the predictable annoyance of his father. The style and composition are very different from what I was used to reading, especially the dialogue, of which perhaps over 70 percent of the book is.