The Commitments

A group of working-class Irish youths with a passion for the music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding form a rock 'n' roll band and attempt to bring soul to Dublin.

This funky, rude, unpretentious first novel traces the short, funny, and furious career of a group of working-class Irish kids who form a band, The Commitments. Their mission: to bring soul to Dublin!

Publishers Weekly

``Dublin soul'' is what the lads call it. Obsessed with James Brown, Percy Sledge and other rhythm-and-blues greats from across the ocean, young Jimmy Rabbitte organizes the ``world's hardest working band,'' made up of fellow Dubliners, and sets out to teach the town a lesson about soul. This cheeky first novel by a Dublin native, punctuated with Irish obscenities and quotes from soul classics, informed by righteous working-class anger and youthful alienation, offers the entertaining and insightful chronicle of The Commitment's rise and inevitable fall. In the process, impromptu sermons on the true meaning of soul are delivered in delightfully offhand fashion (``soul is lifting yourself up, soul is dusting yourself off''). But only a true-blue soul music fan will be able to appreciate the nuances and hear the melodies that resonate throughout the text, as The Commitments recite their slightly skewed versions of songs from the '60s (``when a ma-han loves a wo-man . . . he'll even bring her to stupid places like the zoo-oo-''). (July)

Il est inutile de chercher Barrytown sur un plan de Dublin et de ses environs. Car ce faubourg de la capitale irlandaise, rendu célèbre par la trilogie que lui a consacrée Roddy Doyle, n'existe pas. Ou plutôt Barrytown est partout autour de Dublin, là où vivent ces Monsieur-tout-le-monde qui aiment leur Bushmills bien tassé et fait au pays. Dans la trilogie de Roddy Doyle, Monsieur-tout-le-monde et sa famille s'appellent les Rabbitte : le père, la mère et les trois enfants. Au fil de ce premier mouvement, on assiste à la création, par le fils aîné, Jimmy Junior, d'un groupe de soul music dublinoise. Pas évident, verra-t-on, puisque Jimmy ne sait pas jouer une seule note. Mais il a de l'entregent, il est au parfum, et à coeur vaillant rien d'impossible, on le sait bien In the first volume of the Barrytown Trilogy, Roddy Doyle, winner of the Booker Prize for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, introduces The Commitments, a group of fame-starved, working-class Irish youths with a paradoxical passion for the music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and a mission—to bring Soul to Dublin. Doyle writes about the band with a fan's enthusiasm and about Dublin with a native's cheerful knowingness. His book captures all the shadings of the rock experience: ambition, greed, and egotism—ans the redeeming, exhilarating joy of making music. The Commitments is one of the most engaging and believable novels about rock'n'roll ever written, a book whose brashness and originality have won it mainstream acclaim and underground cachet. Talk a group of fame-starved, working-class Irish youths who call themselves The Commitments, give them a paradoxical passion for the music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, and a mission -- to bring Soul to Dublin -- and you have the makings of one of the most engaging and believable novels about rock 'n' roll ever written, a book whose brashness and originality have won it mainstream acclaim and underground cachet. Roddy Doyle, a young Dubliner, writes about the band with a fan's enthusiasm, about his city with a native's cheerful knowingness. His book captures all the shadings of the rock experience: ambition, greed, and egotism - and the redeeming, exhilarating joy of making music. --back cover Take a group of fame-starved, working-class Irish youths who call themselves The Commitments, give them a paradoxical passion for the music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, and a mission -- to bring Soul to Dublin -- and you have the makings of one of the most engaging and believable novels about rock 'n' roll ever written, a book whose brashness and originality have won it mainstream acclaim and underground cachet. Roddy Doyle, a young Dubliner, writes about the band with a fan's enthusiasm, about his city with a native's cheerful knowingness. His book captures all the shadings of the rock experience: ambition, greed, and egotism - and the redeeming, exhilarating joy of making music. --back cover "Take a group of fame-starved, working-class Irish youths who call themselves The Commitments, give them a paradoxical passion for the music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, and a mission -- to bring Soul to Dublin -- and you have the makings of one of the most engaging and believable novels about rock 'n' roll ever written, a book whose brashness and originality have won it mainstream acclaim ... Roddy Doyle ... writes about the band with a fan's enthusiasm, about Dublin with a native's cheerful knowingness. His book captures all the shadings of the rock experience: ambition, greed, and egotism, and the redeeming, exhilarating joy of making music." The Commitments (1987) is a novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle.[2] The first episode in The Barrytown Trilogy, it is about a group of unemployed young people in the north side of Dublin, Ireland, who start a soul band. ---------- Also contained in: [Barrytown Trilogy](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL762601W)