The Commitments-Roddy Doyle

     The Commitments, by Roddy Doyle is a novel based in Northern Dublin, Ireland about two friends, Derek and Outspan starting their own band. At first frazzled by the whole process, the two boys go to their friend Jimmy Rabbitte, their friend who knew a lot about music and the industry that could get them rolling into success. Quickly grasping the idea, Jimmy rapidly assembled all the people they needed: Derek Scully; bass, Outspan Foster; guitarist James Clifford; pianist, Dean Fay; saxophonist, Billy Mooney; drummer, Joey Fagan(An older fellow who played part as the co manager); trumpet, Declan Cuffe; lead singer and Imelda Quirke, Natalie Murphy, Bernie McGloughin; back up singers. They had decided that they would be called 'The Commitments' and would play Dublin Soul, playing for the people by the people. The band had practiced and practiced, until they had their parts down pat, which mean they were ready to get a booking for a real show, and not in a garage. As their first few venues were amazing, their level of success was raised, but along with the success came the tension. As the gigs continued, things only got worse and worse until finally the band had broken up. The book ends with many of the ex band members coming together to form a new band to play 'Dublin Country', they're name was "The Brassers"

     As The Commitments was based in Dublin Ireland, the author, Roddy Doyle, had incorporated many Irish slang words such as: Eejit-Idiot, yis/yeh-you, tha'-that righ'-right. As these slang words try and represent the way it sounds, it made it awfully hard to read and I often had to go back and read at a much slower pace just to understand a sentence. As each character was introduced, a little bit of their background was added and further into the book more and more was revealed. I found that the authenticity of the characters, was very well written, as well as the relationship between the different characters. As drama stirred between the characters, you could feel the tension and heat of the fight because of the depth of description. The Commitments was based off of Dublin Ireland, Roddy Doyle was given a lot to work with in the case of the setting. I found that where ever the characters went, the setting was given a good description, but was then dropped and very little information was given after, which left cracks in the writing. As well, rarely did the author describe the other parts of Dublin, only the slums where they lived.

     In The Commitments, I found three sentences that had appealed to me and each had it's own reason.
"Those watching the other Commitments saw them stiffening, and Billy making a rude gesture at Deco's back with one of his sticks."
I chose this sentence because although readers will not notice at first, this is the whole seed of conflict. This sentence states the arising conflict we see towards the end and other problems may have formed, but they had branched off from this part of the book.
"Now that Jimmy thought of it, Imelda might have been holding The Commitments together."
I chose this sentence because it reflects Jimmy's ideas, as well as implies future events in the book. With stating that the band all fancied Imelda, it opened up the path for Roddy Doyle to add in that Joey had made out with Imelda, the climax peak which tore up the band
" 'I was in touch with your man, Dave, from Eejit Records, remember? I asked him would he be interested in a country-punk version of Night Trainn and he said he might be.' "
After the band had broken up, many of the members still wanted to stick together. This line foreshadows that although The Commitments had ended, there was still hope to form another group (Not neccesarliy a sequel).