The Commitments by Roddy Doyle is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read according to one critic, albeit it is just 3777th on The Greatest Books of All Time site – you find thousands of reviews on magnum opera from both and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read according to one critic, albeit it is just 3777^th on The Greatest Books of All Time site – you find thousands of reviews on magnum opera from both and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

9 out of 10

 

“This is one of the fantastic, hilarious and short marvels that you can finish in just a few hours, wishing at the same time that there would be more, included for perfect reasons on The Guardian’s 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list” – this is how ecstatic I was some years ago, when I had the chance to read this for the first time https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-commitments-by-roddy-doyle-10-out.html

 

Alas, on this second take, I was not so elated, even if I discovered that quite a few books will gain when somebody else reads them, audiobooks that is, in this particular case, the actor is also a talented singer, and he helps readers get a better feeling about what the songs sound like, as opposed to just imagining them…

Then there is the marvelous Bell Jar, as read by outstanding Maggie Gyllenhaal – I am sorry to see that her recent motion picture, The Bride, has tanked at the box office, and was not well received by critics - https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-bell-jar-by-sylvia-plath-10-out-of.html this is a marvelous production

 

Jimmy Rabbitte seems to be the main character, although there are others that I have liked, such as Joey ‘The Lips’ Fagan, since he is older, it must be a sort of identification, I see myself in this talented musician, and I especially enjoyed the fact that this very young woman is attracted to him, that gives one hope, right?

They want to get together a band – The Commitments would be the name of the group, hence the novel – and they audition, so Joey The Lips comes and everyone is shocked by his age, experience and his having been on stage with Jimmy Hendrix, The Beatles, James Brwon and so many other stars of the time, and our age

 

This Is Spinal Tap https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-bell-jar-by-sylvia-plath-10-out-of.html comes to mind, though there are so many films on the lives of singers, bands – another one would indeed be The Band, directed by Martin Scorsese – and we recognize some of the same dynamics, fights, clashes

Dean, I think that was the name of the singer, is obnoxious, just like many (most, or is it all) rock stars, celebrities and he creates tension within The Commitments, at one point, a fight is started when he fails to present as they had agreed to, he acts, talks as if this is his creation, and it is not, he is gifted, but maybe not irreplaceable

 

The Intellectuals by Paul Johnson shows us that if one is extremely talented in some way, then regression to the mean, or some other rule of compensation makes the Outlier likely to have serious flaws…to end with, let me just mention that I was enchanted by another Roddy Doyle novel, The Van https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-van-by-roddy-doyle-finalist-for.html