|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Amazon
Into this flurry of daily concerns and excitements comes a letter from the local housing authority, notifying her that all the indigent families in her neighborhood are being relocated from their shabby but familiar tenements in the center of Dublin to new houses in a distant suburb. At the sad but raucous farewell party at the pub, Agnes sits drinking cider "in her usual corner," remembering her best friend, Marion, who died three years before: "Ah Jaysus, Marion, listen to them!" she muses. "The music of The Jarro! Will we ever hear the likes of it again?"
The music to which Agnes referred could not be played on any instrument, but was the cackle of voices and rhythmic banter of the inner-city folk, the symphony of unanswered questions and impossible statements, that were so much of the colour of Dublin: "Hey, Mr. Foley. A vodka with ice--and fresh ice, none of that frozen stuff!" This would be followed by a howl of laughter.As you read, it is impossible not to envision a feel-good film of The Chisellers (Anjelica Huston directed The Mammy) and to admire O'Carroll's comic skill, even if his sunny, too-tidy conclusion to the novel makes Frank McCourt read like Dostoyevsky. --Regina Marler
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Life as only Brendan O'Carroll can describe it.,
This review is from: The Chisellers (Paperback)
This is the second book of the trilogy O'Carroll writes about his fictious "Mammy" Agnes Brown. Not as "funny" as his first book but he paints a beautiful picture of life's ups and downs. He is a brilliant story teller. You are right there feeling the joys and the pains of a large Irish family as life happens. Can't wait to read his third book "The Granny".
2.0 out of 5 stars
Don't be fooled by the cute photo on the cover!,
This review is from: The Chisellers (Paperback)
This book was advertised in some of the American Irish Papers and the photo looked very cute, and frankly, I could have been one of the kids on the cover, so I picked it up. The novel is PURE pulp set with some cute characters, but this author 'jazzez' up the storyline and makes it 'modern' in a way that is subtle to the modern mind but a fraud and a trick on the reader. This book follows teen and late teen working class (comparitively) large family living in a Dublin apartment. In the tradition of a trite modern movie, good things happen to this 'single mother' 'Agnes' who never had an 'organism' with her late husband because he was like ice upon her back. You gotta throw in the single-mom and sexually underutilized 1970's housewife to sell a novel these days you know. She however, finds fulfillment in a French transplanted pizza maker. This all the while her oldest son, who works for an Austrian Jewish holocau$t refugee and survivor (gotta throw the holocau$t reference in there to make a modern novel you know) and saves the survivors old fashioned handcrafted furniture factory when the English clients want cheap disposable furniture, by making . . . cheap disposable furniture. Along the way, he finds a girlfriend and gets married. The second older son becomes a hairdresser and a homosexual, but Agnes, being the stupid woman, never cathces on even when her gay son dances with his randy boyfriend at the other son's wedding. But the son actually married says the modernist 'Whatever makes you happy?' But the third older son is a skinhead punk (gotta throw the nazi rascism reference in there to sell a modern novel ya' know) He steals money from Agnes, gambles, and helps beat her gay son almost to death with his other skinhead punk friends. We all know that there were *so many* skinheads and beatings in Dublin circa 1973. That is why the whole country, below the 6 counties, had 2 murders a year. The other kid is a shoplifter, the other daughter races a go-kart, all summing up into a completely false and unbelievable tale wrapped in quaint language with some true references to way people act, and still act in some quarters. I think this book's cover is its only high point. I have cut the cover off, by the way. Buy this book with the hopes of scoring a picture, do not expect writing in the style of the McCourts, or as accurately truthful as 'Its a long way from Penny Apples'
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my all time faves!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Chisellers (Paperback)
After reading The Mammy and rolling around on my bed laughing my head off, I immediately opened The Chisellers.The second book, which follows the lives of the children as they enter aldulthood, is much more dramatic. The author painted a clear enough picture of each kid in The Mammy that I was eager to see how everything turned out. Well the last few pages had me sobbing into my pillow at four in the morning, it was so beautiful. When I opened the book the next day to re-read the end, I noticed that the whole last page was splattered in tear marks from other readers where they had all cried on it, this being a library book. Some were old and faded, some had makeup on them...and I was very careful not to cry on it myself, so I know they weren't all mine! (I have only ever seen that at the end of A Prayer For Owen Meany) The whole trilogy is both hillarious and moving. Agnes's devotion to her kids, and the kids' love for each other is what makes it work, and of course, Brendan O'Carroll is a genius.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
|
