Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among my Interests








Tuesday, September 9, 2014

"Teaching" by Roddy Doyle (April 2, 2007, in The New Yorker)




In the last few years I have read eight novels by Roddy Doyle and several of his short stories.  Obviously I greatly like and admire his work, much of which focuses on working class modern Irish of Dublin. 

"Teachers" takes place in just a few hours, set in a school in Dublin, on the opening day of the school year.  The narrator, has taught there for thirty years.  Now every year on opening day a few students will tell him he taught one of their parents.  He tries to bring the face of the parent to mind.  He used to totally love teaching, he tried to engage the students.  Sometimes the passion comes back but many days he is watching the clock for last bell.   He thinks back over his life, to the women he has been involved with.

"Teachers" is very well done story that lets us feel we understand the life of the teacher.

I think the section I most appreciated was when he began to talk about how the student body had changed in the last thirty years.  It felt very real.



You can read it for a while here


Please share your experience with Roddy Doyle with us.

Mel u


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