Books › The Commitments
The Commitments
176 pages
A loud, profane, and fiercely energetic love letter to soul music and working-class dreams.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like being crammed into a damp, freezing Dublin garage with a dozen people who are shouting over each other, trying to make something beautiful out of nothing. It is a relentlessly brisk, dialogue-heavy experience that moves at the speed of a snare drum. The narrative is stripped of almost all exposition, relying instead on rapid-fire, profanity-laced banter to build its world and characters. It is loud, chaotic, and incredibly funny, capturing the specific friction and magic of a band trying to find its groove. Beneath the gritty, irreverent surface lies a deeply earnest celebration of soul music and working-class ambition. It will delight anyone who loves sharp wit, underdog stories, and the fleeting, transcendent joy of a perfect gig.
- Mood
- chaotic
- loud
- scrappy
- vibrant
- Tone
- irreverent
- profane
- humorous
- gritty
- energetic
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- working-class ambition · transcendent power of music · camaraderie and friction · youthful delusion
- The writing
- Almost entirely dialogue-driven, relying on rapid-fire, profanity-laced Dublin vernacular and phonetic spellings to create a raw, auditory experience.
- The arc
- Moves from explosive, naive ambition through a chaotic, fleeting triumph, ending in an inevitable but fondly remembered dissolution.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love sharp banter, working-class grit, and stories about beautiful, doomed creative endeavors fueled by pure passion.
Content notes
- frequent profanity
- crude humor
- alcohol use
About the book
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.
Description from Open Library.
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