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Oh, Play That Thing
A Novel
by Roddy Doyle

7.0 based on 21 reviews read critic reviews how did we calculate this? based on 4 votes read user comments rate this book

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• Paula Spencer

• Official Publisher Site

The second volume of a planned trilogy which began with "A Star Called Henry" finds Henry Smart, on the run from his former Irish Republican comrades, arriving in 1924 New York - in the America of Prohibition, gangsters and jazz. Having run afoul of several New York mobs, Henry goes on the run again, to Chicago, where he befriends and assists Louis Armstrong during the birth, not just of jazz, but of modern music.

Viking Books, 378 pages
11/04/2004
$24.95

ISBN: 0670033618

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
Historical Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Chicago Sun-Times Randy Michael Signor

Doyle writes with a voice that rings like a note crying out of a burnished cornet. You'd swear Louis Armstrong himself was telling you the story.

Houston Chronicle Allen Barra

Viking is reprinting "A Star Called Henry" to coincide with the release of Oh, Play That Thing. Together, they constitute one of the most remarkable achievements in recent Irish and American literature -- and we're left with the tantalizing possibility of a third novel to follow.

Boston Globe Julie Hatfield

Henry Smart may not be admirable, but he is unforgettable.

Chicago Tribune Jason Berry

A bold venture into the dream life of jazz in America. It is also a remarkable performance in language.

Booklist Allison Block

Doyle displays his trademark sensitivity and wit in a tale full of adventure, passion, and prose as punchy as a Satchmo riff. [1 Sept 2004, p.4]

Village Voice Allen Barra

Like a musician mixing blues riffs with snatches of jigs, Doyle weaves his story through numerous genres.

The Spectator Sandra Howard

This volume is staccato; the backdrop is great, the story imaginative, a potentially powerful vehicle, but -- and I may just be missing a satirical vein and its real point -- the heart of the story, the believable core, was hard to find.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Elizabeth Grove-White

Doyle has always written brilliantly about popular music, and the Chicago section of Oh, Play That Thing (the title is from a King Oliver classic) throbs with the syncopation and verve of Chicago's 1920s jazz scene.

The Guardian Terry Eagleton

What it lacks in human thickness it makes up for in pace and drama...But in the end, the novel is too starry-eyed rather than too streetwise.

The Independent Cole Moreton

Just like jazz, the dialogue follows its own rhythms - and sometimes becomes hard to follow, even incomprehensible, until the reader is left disoriented and gasping for the sweet air of clarity like an exhausted flapper dizzied by the drums and the dope.

Daily Telegraph Robert Hanks

The book descends, too much of the time, into overcrowded picaresque, one damn thing after another.

Kirkus Reviews

Fatally overstuffed and chaotic...An uncharacteristic misstep in a brilliant writer's estimable career.

Publishers Weekly

There's just too much material; any of the novel's numerous strands could have been fleshed out into its own book.

Sydney Morning Herald Gerard Windsor

There are multiple problems with this breathless economy of words. For one thing, it's a trait engrained in everyone in the novel. There are more characters here than in a madhouse, and when they all talk in these often elliptical one-liners, the whole scene becomes very blurry indeed.

Los Angeles Times Richard Eder

Doyle is a visitor, if a keen one. There's nothing wrong with this except that the mythical surges, the comedy swelling into epic, don't suit the visitor role. His Henry is not simply a picaresque figure, a hyperactive Zelig present at all the big moments. He helps them happen; he is a Paul Bunyan imported from the Irish wars but -- with all respect to jazz, mobs and the Depression -- one who has no real forests to cut.

Daily Telegraph David Robson

A clumsy piece of work, rolling genially along but lacking the virtuosity and, above all, the craftsmanship of the best picaresque fiction.

Entertainment Weekly Troy Patterson

In the absence of a genuine story, phony history must suffice.

The Guardian Lisa O'Kelly

It is less successful, less convincing. Perhaps, in part, this is because Doyle's idiosyncratic Irish voice sounds less sure of itself among the diaspora in America, and a lot less authentic in the mouths of Americans themselves.

The New York Times Book Review Anthony Quinn

Try as Doyle might to romanticize Henry as another wild rover, by the end the book is in serious trouble. The urgency of the New York-Chicago period has slowed to a stagger, and Armstrong's vibrant horn blowing has been replaced by Henry plucking mournfully at our heartstrings.

Washington Post Rodney Welch

How could the author of so spirited a novel as "A Star Called Henry" write a sequel as lame as Oh, Play That Thing?

The Onion A.V. Club Scott Tobias

A crushing disappointment.

The average user rating for this book is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

NY O'man gave it a10:
Nice book. Doyle is a very talented writer. It is a little bit naive story but that's ok. Such is life.

ken d gave it a1:
I cannot imagine how the "average" rating of this book can be Nine. The book reminded me of the film - Forrest Gump. Towards the end you realize this is just plain stupid and too impossible to imagine. I threw it in the rubbish bin. I hope the trash men don't find it and waste their time.

Stone J gave it a9:
Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better, sings Fat Olaf's half-sister throughout the pages of Oh, Play That Thing. And so, presumably, does author Roddy Doyle. The Irish author has indeed gotten better with each novel he writes. Deservedly earning 1993's Booker Award for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Doyle has warranted acclaim for his unique take on modern-day Ireland, delivering captivating characters and quietly astonishing tragedies while capturing the urban patois of Irish speech. What a shock, then, when Doyle released A Star Called Henry in 1999, unveiling a hitherto unseen tool in his arsenal: ferocity. A historical novel of Ireland's violent past, Star was brash, lyrical, and often visionary, an abrupt turnabout from Doyle's standard offbeat fare. Now, in Oh, Play That Thing, Star's tremendous follow-up, Doyle takes his riskiest step yet; he leaves Ireland altogether for 1920s America. The risk pays off handsomely. Doyle appears to be incapable of writing a bad novel. Henry Smart, Doyle's wily protagonist, has just immigrated to Manhattan, a city that "made tiny things of the people around me, all gawking at the manmade cliffs, and the ranks of even higher cliffs behind them . . . I could see the terror in their eyes." It is already an America of slick admen and crass opportunism, and Henry will not be left out. A natural charmer, Henry throws himself into the new world with gusto. But when his usual practice of skimming off the top draws attention to his past, he flees to Chicago, where he sees a man playing the trumpet so viciously "[h]is lips were bleeding - I saw drops fall like notes to his patent leather shoes - but he was the happiest man on earth." The man is Louis Armstrong, and Henry's life is taking an unexpected detour. Coming from the author of The Commitments, a novel that disparagingly regarded jazz as "sound for the sake of sound," it may surprise readers how passionately Doyle evokes Armstrong's music. What is not surprising is how fluently Doyle weaves musical tempos and lyrics into the rhythm of the story, crafting entire scenes around songs that lend both ambience and potency to Henry's life. As usual, Doyle maintains his mastery of distinctive yet realistic dialogue, a rapid-fire staccato similar to the works of American authors James Ellroy or David Mamet. But the real pleasure is witnessing Doyle's continual evolution as a stylist, expanding his stories beyond the fabulous dialogue of his earlier novels with gritty atmosphere and astonishing physicality. Henry Smart is a spectacular character; ceaselessly moving and thinking, luckier than he is smart, callous yet eminently likeable. As he moves from the embedded violence of Ireland to the ingrained racism of America, Henry begins to recognize more than simply his own desires. The growth Doyle allows Henry is remarkable, matched perfectly with Doyle's perpetual inventiveness. Oh, Play That Thing is a coup of imagination and verve, the equal to A Star Called Henry, and a triumph on its own. When Henry's story eventually continues, Doyle will have his work cut out for him.

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