Oh, Play That Thing - Couverture rigide

Doyle, Roddy

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0670033618 ISBN 13 : 9780670033614

Editeur : Viking Pr, 2004

A propos du livre

Extrait :

I could bury myself in New York. I could see that from the boat as it went under the Statue of Liberty on a cold dawn that grew quickly behind me and shoved the fog off the slate-coloured water. That was Manhattan, already towering over me. It made tiny things of the people around me, all gawking at the manmade cliffs, and the ranks of even higher cliffs behind them, stretching forever into America and stopping their entry. I could see the terror in their eyes.

I could stare into the eyes without fear of recognition. They weren’t Irish faces and it wasn’t Irish muck on the hems of their greatcoats. Those coats had been dragged across Europe. They were families, three and four generations of them; the Irish travelled alone. There were the ancient women, their faces collapsed and vicious, clutching bags they’d carried across the continent, full of string and eggshells and stones from the walls of lost houses. And their husbands behind them, hidden by beards, their eyes still young and fighting. They guarded the cases and boxes at their feet. And their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, under embroidered scarves and black caps, and younger children still, and pregnant girls with scrawny boys standing and sitting beside them, all cowed by the approaching city cliffs. Even the youngest sensed that their excitement was unwanted and stayed silent, as the Reliance sent small waves against Bedloe’s Island and the big stone American woman – send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me – as their parents and grandparents shivered at the new world and tried to know if they were looking at its front or back. I was the only man alone, the only man not afraid of what was growing up in front of us. This was where a man could disappear, could die if he wanted to, and come back to quick, big life.

I had arrived.

But we turned from Manhattan and sailed, almost back into the night, towards the New Jersey shore. And the silence around me fell deeper as the island crept up in front of us. The last few square feet of the old, cruel world, the same name in all the languages on board as we were pulled closer and closer, isola delle lagrime, Tränen Insel, the isle of tears. Ellis Island.

Hundreds of shuffling feet trapped under the vaulted ceiling of the great hall, the air was full of the whispers of the millions who’d passed through, the cries of the thousands who’d been stopped and sent back. I listened for the tap of a famous leg, but I heard none. Old men tried to straighten long-crooked backs and mothers rubbed rough colour into the white cheeks of their children. Wild men ran fingers through long beards and regretted that they hadn’t shaved before they’d disembarked. Jewish women caressed sons’ ringlets and tried to push them under hats. Fragments of new language were tried, and passed from mouth to mouth.

—Yes, sir.

—No, sir.

—My cousin, he have a house.

—I am a farmer.

—Qu-eeeens.

The medical inspector stared into my eyes. I knew what he was looking for. I’d been told all about it, by a lame and wheezy anarchist who was making his seventh try at landing.

—They see the limp but never the brain, he’d said. —The fools. When they confront the fact that I am too dangerous for their country, then I will happily turn my back on it. But, until then, I commute between Southampton and their Ellis Island.

—If you could afford first or second class, I told him, —you wouldn’t have to set foot on the island.

—You think I am not aware of this? he said. —I can afford it. But I won’t afford it.

The inspector was looking for signs of trachoma in my eyes, and for madness behind them. He couldn’t stare for long – no one could; he saw nothing that was going to send me back. To my left, another inspector drew a large L on a shoulder with a brand new piece of chalk. L was for lung. I knew the signs; I’d been seeing them all my life. The man with the brand new L had already given up. He collapsed and coughed out most of his remaining life. He had to be carried away. An E on the shoulder meant bad eyes, another L meant lameness. And behind those letters, other hidden letters, never chalked onto shoulders: J for too Jewish, C for Chinese, SE, too far south and east of Budapest. H was for heart, SC was for scalp, X was for mental.

And H was for handsome.

The guards stood back and I walked the few steps to the next desk. I let my heels clip the Spanish tiles. Two beautiful sisters held each other as they were pushed back. Without parents or children they were too likely to fall into bad hands waiting for them on the Manhattan or New Jersey wharfs. If they were lucky they’d be kept on the island until relatives were found to take them; less lucky, they’d be pawed, then let through; less lucky still, they’d be deported, sent back before they’d arrived.

I handed my passport and papers to the Immigration Bureau officer. He opened the passport and found the ten-dollar note I’d left in its centre. The note was gone before I saw it missing. I’d taken it from the wheezy anarchist; its loss didn’t sting. Then came the catechism, the questions I couldn’t get wrong.

—What is your name?

—Henry Drake.

—Where are you from?

—London.

—Why have you come to the United States?

—Opportunity.

So far, so easy.

But he stopped. He looked at me.

—Where are you travelling from, sir? he asked me.

It wasn’t one of the questions.

—London, I said.

He seemed to be staring at the word as I spoke it.

—You are a born Englishman, sir?

He read my latest name.

—Mister Drake?

—Yes.

—Henry Drake.

—Yes.

—And where is Missis Drake, sir?

—She’s in my dreams.

—So you’re travelling alone, sir, is that right? You are an unmarried man.

—That’s right.

—And how do you intend supporting yourself, sir?

We were back on track.

—By working very hard.

—Yes, and how, sir?

—I’m a salesman.

—And your speciality?

I shrugged.

—Everything, and anything.

—Alright. And do you have sufficient funds to sustain you until you commence selling everything?

—I do.

He handed me a sheet of paper.

—Could you read this for me, sir?

—We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union—

And as I strolled through the literacy test, I could feel Victor, my brother, beside me, his leg pressed against mine in the school desk, and Miss O’Shea at my shoulder, my teacher and wife, the mother of the daughter I suddenly missed, her wet fingers on my cheek.

—and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of—

He took the paper from my fingers. He picked up a rubber stamp and brought it down on top of a card. I read the stamp: ADMITTED.

—Welcome to America, he said.
From the Hardcover edition.

Biographie de l'auteur :

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin, Ireland. He attended St. Fintan’s Christian Brothers School and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from University College. For fourteen years he worked as an English and geography teacher in Kilbarrack, North Dublin, and his students provided inspiration for his first published novel, The Commitments. When Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the Booker Prize in 1993 while he was still in his thirties, he dedicated himself to writing full-time. After writing from nine to five each day, he spends his evenings with his wife and kids, “because it’s what I love to do.”

He achieved widespread recognition when The Commitments, about a young working-class Dubliner who organizes a soul band, was made into a hugely popular film in 1991 by Alan Parker. However, Doyle had first published the book himself in 1987 because he didn’t feel The Commitments fit in with other books coming out at the time; convinced it would be rejected, he and a friend figured out how much it would cost to publish it themselves – the same as a good second-hand car – and got a bank loan.

Meanwhile he got a lucky break when his first play, Brown Bread, was produced by a theatre group and staged at a large venue. The Commitments sold a few thousand copies and got a lot of attention because of a good cover and what Doyle calls an “arrogant” press release, but didn’t sell in big numbers. Then two Dublin writers gave the book to friends of film director Alan Parker in Los Angeles and he liked it; the film came out three years later. The book was picked up by a British publisher, and from then on his work would gain international acclaim and success.

The Commitments and his next two novels, known as the Barrytown Trilogy after the north Dublin estate modelled on Kilbarrack where they are set, focus on the Rabbittes, a family whose lives are a mixture of comedy, depressing poverty and domestic chaos. The second book, The Snapper, concerns the relationship between Jimmy and his eldest daughter when she becomes pregnant and faces becoming a single mother. Irish author Maeve Binchy called it “the most amazing account of a pregnancy ever written.” The Van focuses on a middle-aged man facing the loneliness and shame of unemployment and his effort to raise himself out of it by buying a rundown van to sell fish and chips from as the Irish soccer team wins its way into the finals of the World Cup. The Van was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1991 and all three books were made into films.

Doyle’s next novel, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, about a ten-year-old boy who watches his parents’ marriage disintegrate, won him the Booker Prize, Britain’s highest literary award in 1993. It is the most commercially successful Booker winner to date and is now available in nineteen languages. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, about an abused wife, was published three years later. Like the Barrytown Trilogy, both novels focus on families, which Doyle says is natural since it’s common in Ireland to live with your family right up to your mid-twenties and not stray far when you move out. “I’ve always lived within about three miles from where I was born.”

His work often involves brutality and violence. A Star Called Henry, the first installment of the Last Roundup Trilogy, was no exception. It encompasses the 1916 Rebellion and sectarian violence, something both Doyle’s grandparents would likely have been involved in. It received the best reviews he has ever had.

Doyle writes rowdy novels, full of Dublin vernacular and cursing so vibrant and charged that it is almost musical, vulgarity turned to poetry. His characters often fail but are survivors; their lives are tough, but beauty, dignity and tenderness prevail. He’s been called one of the great Dublin working class writers, but his work speaks to people all over the world. “What I try to do with my stories is take universal issues and set them in a couple of square fictional miles in Dublin.”
From the Hardcover edition.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Viking Pr
• Date d'édition: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0670033618
• ISBN 13: 9780670033614
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 378