Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A bit of a bits and pieces novel, 27 Jul 2007
I'm just after reading Paula Spencer and, whilst it seemed well written, it was a little underwhelming.
We met Paula 10 years ago in The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. Paula was an abused wife with a drink problem. Now we meet Paula again, and share in her battle to beat the booze and put her life back together. Charlo, the violent husband, is no more.
Roddy Doyle's style is to use dialogue to set the scene. This is not that far removed from James Kelman's style. The success of it depends, really, on whether or not you click with the character. I'm afraid I found that I didn't click with Paula Spencer. To my mind, she was too whingey; too much the victim. She didn't have the positivity of a recovering alcoholic looking forward to getting her life back - but perhaps that only happens in films. Instead, she was finding that she had thrown her life away; had fairly ambivalent relationships with her children and her sisters; and was right at the bottom of the social pile, doing contract cleaning at outdoor concerts. Her children had more spare money than her and rather more get up and go.
There were moments of drama - particularly as Paula Spencer tried to stop her daughter Leanne following in her footsteps as she battled her own temptations [interestingly, "leann" is Irish for beer which was a distraction]. There was also some ambiguity about her son and whether or not he was gay, but this fizzled out. And disconcertingly, the narrative jumped weeks and months with no clear warning. The only real pointer was Paula telling someone how long she had now been off the drink.
I'm not sure there was any very fitting conclusion. Nobody seemed very happy. There was irony that Paula Spencer - the wayward sister - did not seem to have the biggest problems at the end. But it lacked the impact of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, and didn't have the humour or dignity of, say, How Late It Was, How Late (James Kelman). It was a bit of a bits and pieces novel, but the pacing of the dialogue and the brevity meant it didn't outstay its welcome.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Fabulous Story, 11 Nov 2006
This is the Paula's first year of recovery from alcoholism. Paula is a mother of 4 and also one of four daughters. In this beautiful, bitter sweet story we see Paula struggling with the guilt of having been a remiss mother and a battered wife. Her recovery enables her to meet her grown up children as the adults they have become and she witnesses clearly the effect her addiction has had on every one of her children. This is a beautiful and funny and tragic story, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
A bit of a bits and pieces novel, 14 May 2007
I'm just after reading Paula Spencer and, whilst it seemed well written, it was a little underwhelming.
We met Paula 10 years ago in The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. Paula was an abused wife with a drink problem. Now we meet Paula again, and share in her battle to beat the booze and put her life back together. Charlo, the violent husband, is no more.
Roddy Doyle's style is to use dialogue to set the scene. This is not that far removed from James Kelman's style. The success of it depends, really, on whether or not you click with the character. I'm afraid I found that I didn't click with Paula Spencer. To my mind, she was too whingey; too much the victim. She didn't have the positivity of a recovering alcoholic looking forward to getting her life back - but perhaps that only happens in films. Instead, she was finding that she had thrown her life away; had fairly ambivalent relationships with her children and her sisters; and was right at the bottom of the social pile, doing contract cleaning at outdoor concerts. Her children had more spare money than her and rather more get up and go.
There were moments of drama - particularly as Paula Spencer tried to stop her daughter Leanne following in her footsteps as she battled her own temptations [interestingly, "leann" is Irish for beer which was a distraction]. There was also some ambiguity about her son and whether or not he was gay, but this fizzled out. And disconcertingly, the narrative jumped weeks and months with no clear warning. The only real pointer was Paula telling someone how long she had now been off the drink.
I'm not sure there was any very fitting conclusion. Nobody seemed very happy. There was irony that Paula Spencer - the wayward sister - did not seem to have the biggest problems at the end. But it lacked the impact of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, and didn't have the humour or dignity of, say, How Late It Was, How Late (James Kelman). It was a bit of a bits and pieces novel, but the pacing of the dialogue and the brevity meant it didn't outstay its welcome.
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