More Bikes in Literature: The Snapper...

Before you read further, you must first practice yer best Irish brogue, the accent is critical for the proper reading of what follows. A'right then, carry on...

"Happy birthd'y, son...

Good man Darren, said Jimmy Sr. There y'are. He handed Darren a thin cylindrical parcel.
Wha' is it?
It's your birthd'y present, Jimmy Sr. told him.
It's not a bike.
I know tha', said Jimmy Sr...
What is it?
Open it an' see, son...

It's a pump.
That's right, said Jimmy Sr. It's a good one too...

I'll get yeh a wheel for your Christmas, said Jimmy Sr. An' the other one for your next birthd'y. An' then the saddle. An' before yeh know it you'll have your bike. How's tha'?
Darren looked at his da. His da was smiling but it wasn't a joking smile... He understood now; he'd just been given a poxy pump for his birthday. And he was going to be getting bits of bike for the rest of his life and...

Yis are messin'!
Jimmy Sr. laughed.
We are o' course.
He opened the back door and went out, and came back in with a bike, a big old black grocer's delivery bike with a frame over the front wheel but no basket in it...

It's a Stephen Roche special, said Jimmy Sr....

Yis are still messin'
We are o' course, said Jimmy Sr.
He patted the saddle.
This is Bimbo's
He wheeled it out, and wheeled in the real present...

Ah rapid! Da, Ma. Thanks. Rapid. Ah deadly...

A Raleigh! Deadly. Ten gears! Great. Muggah's only got five...

He was looking at his new bike and adoring it; it's thinness, neatness, shininess, the colour, the pedals with the straps on them and, most of all, the handlebars...

It's brilliant.
He wolfed his breakfast, then cycled across he road to school."

This is one of numerous references to bikes found in the story entitled "The Snapper" by Roddy Doyle. The Snapper is book two of the Barrytown trilogy, which also includes "The Commitments" (yes, it was made into a movie), and "The Van". The Barrytown Trilogy, first published in the United States by Penguin Books, 1995.

Bikes in literature...

"It was a noise you never caught in the city, the whir of bike chains in action together. It was one of the great sounds of the war."


A couple great sentences from "A Star Called Henry". Evocative and thought provoking. On the one hand you have the stillness of the rural landscape through which the group rides - there is no rumble of automobiles, no hum of factories at work, no hustle of an urban population always on the move, nothing to disturb the unison of multiple bikes working together. And this is a key, these are not individuals each going their separate way. This is a group acting in concert, and with a purpose, to which the bike is a most appropriate tool. The imagery of the second sentence, though is even more interesting and compelling. Of all the sounds one imagines, or remembers, about war - explosions, rifle fire, shouted commands, screams, the roar of engines - how would one even consider the simple whir of bike chains as being in the same category? Yet the bike's simplicity and nimbleness makes it the perfect means of mobility against a much more powerful and heavily equiped foe, a foe that could not be matched armor against armor, engine against engine. But a bike can be concealed, is virtually silent, and is a common, everyday tool of the working man. Thus is its power, and thus the whir of bike chains become one of the great sounds of war.

A Star Called Henry is written by Roddy Doyle, and published by Penguin Books, 1999