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Bullfighting: Stories

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 313 ratings · 74 reviews

The Man Booker Prize-winning author takes the pulse of modern Ireland with a masterful new collection of stories.

Roddy Doyle has earned a devoted following for his wry wit, his uncanny ear, and his ability to fully capture the hearts of his characters. Bullfighting, his second collection of stories, offers a series of bittersweet takes on men and middle-age, revealing a...more

Hardcover, 224 pages

Published April 28th 2011 by Viking Adult (first published 2008)

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Mar 23, 2012 Bettie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: published-2011, radio-4x, shortstory-shortstories-novellas, fradio, those-autumn-years, spring-2012, britain-ireland, medical-eew, families, slit-yer-wrists-gloomy, abandoned

Made for 4 Extra. Short stories by the Irish novelist, read by Simon Delaney.

Abandoned just one story short of the full package because I couldn't take anymore 'down'. Adore Slavic Dark, loathe Gaelic bleating-on and this bleated-on through a whole load of ugleh for ugleh's sake.

4* - The Commitments
CR - Bullfighting
3* - Yeats Is Dead (one of the sections)

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Oct 07, 2011 Felicity rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is one of those ratings where I am perhaps shortchanging the author. Really, Doyle perhaps deserves a four...his writing far surpasses that of many other authors, but I prefer his novels to his short stories, and well, while this collection of short stories is good, it's not the best of Roddy Doyle that I have read.

There is something about the way Roddy Doyle writes that is just uniquely Roddy Doyle. You could pick up any one of these stories without his name attached to it, and know "This...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Frank rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish-authors

Roddy Doyle and I have an interesting relationship (though he doesn’t know it, of course). We’re the same age, plus-or-minus eighteen-months, were born sixty-miles or so apart. But I left Ireland at a very tender age, and he didn’t. I liked The Commitments when I first read it, but when Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha came out, I realised that Doyle had lived the life I might have done, had things been different. The setting was not the one I knew from my youth, nor the accents and slang, but I underst...more Roddy Doyle and I have an interesting relationship (though he doesn’t know it, of course). We’re the same age, plus-or-minus eighteen-months, were born sixty-miles or so apart. But I left Ireland at a very tender age, and he didn’t. I liked The Commitments when I first read it, but when Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha came out, I realised that Doyle had lived the life I might have done, had things been different. The setting was not the one I knew from my youth, nor the accents and slang, but I understood everything else about Paddy Clarke from my own experience. Play with friends and relationship with a younger brother. Roddy Doyle was the me I might have been.

And now, all these years later, he still is. Bullfighting is a collection of short stories about men of a certain age, the middle of middle-age you might call it. Men who are dealing with new realities in a new Ireland: post-Tiger, depressed and sometimes depressing. Their children are grown and out of the house; their jobs have grown boring or evaporated altogether; their marriages too. Friends begin to die; they themselves are under doctors’ care.

And oddly enough, for the most part, that’s all right. They’re getting by:

Getting older wasn’t too bad. The baldness suited Martin. Everyone said it. He’d had to change his trouser size from 34 to 36. It was a bit of a shock, but it was kind of nice wearing loose trousers again, hitching them up when he stood up to go to the jacks, or whatever. He was fooling himself; he knew that. But that was the point—he was fooling himself. He’d put on weight but felt a bit thinner.

Doyle’s greatest gift as a writer may be his ability to transcribe the Northside Dublin voice: the phrases and accent and timing. It’s never gratuitous, certainly not at all mocking or demeaning. He captures a specific place and time. I read a few of these stories earlier, in the New Yorker. On one occasion, I started reading the story without looking at the title or by-line and by the end of the second paragraph knew it was Roddy Doyle. I could hear his voice.

The voice I might have had.
(less)

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Jun 02, 2011 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-short-stories

Doyle, Roddy. BULLFIGHTING. (2011). ***.
I’ve followed Doyle’s writing from his early days with “The Committments,” “The Van,” and his Booker Prize winning “Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha,” and was always pleased with the experience. This book, his latest collection of short stories was a disappointment. There are thirteen short stories here that all feature a man of middle age. He’s at the point in life where he thinks as much (or more) about the past than the present and future combined. He has made...more

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Oct 23, 2012 Paul Jellinek rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of my favorite living writers in any language. Period. Maybe if the Nobel Prize crowd reads these new stories, they will finally see the light. Doyle digs deeper into the inner world of his fellow human beings than anyone I can think of since James Joyce in Ulysses--except that, much as I revere Joyce (tremendously!), Doyle is about a thousand times more accessible than Joyce ever is in Ulysses. And that is by no means a defect. The only problem is that I suspect Doyle's accessibility has le...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Katy Brandes rated it 3 of 5 stars

Roddy Doyle is one of my favorite authors. I must start my review with that statement, because I mean no disrespect to his talent with this review. He is amazing; however, his short stories just don't thrill me. Maybe I just simply enjoy the unveiling of the longer story lines in his novels. His turns of phrase after nevertheless hilarious.

Contrary to what I've read other reviewers say, I liked "Bull Fighting" the best in this grouping. Perhaps the whole book of stories doesn't adequately fit u...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Bob rated it 5 of 5 stars

You can breeze through this collection of Roddy Doyle short stories, but why not take your time with each and savor the flavor of Dublin today.

I love how Doyle has matured in his subject matter but kept his writing style. You can almost imagine the boys from "The Commitments" are grown up and facing the challenges of middle-age and beyond.

"Bullfighting" has some funny, funny dialogue between husbands and wives and the kind of banter between pals that will make you think Doyle sat at a bar record...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Lurana rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have always loved his writing, and I completely enjoyed these short stories. The palette is quite small. Most of the stories involve a middle-aged Irish man, kids growing up, somewhat on the rocks with the wife, newly contemplating mortality. But they are still RICH with life, because Doyle is so good at the small details. He is best at inner thoughts, and what I noticed in these stories is that he uniquely conveys the way even our inner thoughts are not necessarily fathomable to us. That we d...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Bullfighting" is a sad book of stories about sad middle-aged men trying to convince themselves that they are not defeated. But, mostly they are defeated despite Doyle's attempts to end each story at a point of uplift or simple acceptance of what is. But these endings are too quick, too facile. Yet, these stories are worth reading because of Doyle's voice and his unique way of capturing the everyday Irish essence. Perhaps in these stories he is contemplating his own "middle" middle age, and expl...more

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Aug 11, 2011 Sally rated it 5 of 5 stars

I snatched this collection of short stories from the local library 'new' shelf, late on a Saturday afternoon. No list and no time. I'd read 'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' years ago and can't remember it, but the Booker Prize bit on the front cover grabbed my attention.
These are stories of Irish men from their forties and older and are all internal dialogues marking the passages of men who are probably indistinguishable from a million others in Ireland, but I was spell bound. Perhaps because I really do...more

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May 27, 2011 Mam rated it 3 of 5 stars

Roddy Doyle sounds tired. In this most recent collection of short stories,most previously published in other sources, Doyle's main characters are aging and, if not unhappy, close enough to see their limtis and indeed their impending deaths.
In his earlier work, Doyle saw the dirt and limits of lives and a kind of hope or humor. This collection is missing the hope and leans to a kind of grim acceptanc
Doyle continues to create settings and a sense of place that is remarkable, but as his characters...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Spiros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the middle-aged

Shelves: new

In a sense, this felt like a revisiting of old haunts, since I had read quite a few of these stories in "The New Yorker": truth be told, pretty much the only time I read fiction in "The New Yorker" is when I see Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, or Roddy Doyle is the author (although I have been suckered into reading Junot Diaz stories because they are usually accompanied by Jaime Hernandez illustrations). Despite the somewhat monotonous quality of these stories, I thoroughly enjoyed reperusing the...more

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Aug 27, 2011 Rachel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011reads, litfic

It's kind of unfair rating this book, because I wouldn't have bothered reading it if I'd realized it was short stories, since I rarely enjoy short stories. But I read it anyway - I had it from the library, I'd read everything else, I love Roddy Doyle, and it was light enough to carry around. And it was fine, but nothing more. Or maybe it's better to say that I liked the first story, but all the stories felt quite similar (scenes of a middle-aged family man), and they weren't interesting enough t...more

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May 21, 2011 Cynthia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Roddy Doyle is one of my favorite Irish authors. I probably didn't pick the best day to read this collection of short stories--it was a full-on-thunderstorm day and I was a bit blue. These stories concern, for the most part, men who are aging and facing the end of a relationship.

But it's not all dark. My favorite story, "Funerals" was about a man who drives his aging parents to funerals, and how much he enjoys it. The son ends up learning something about his parents.

The final story, "Sleep," was...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Giselle rated it 2 of 5 stars

I used to love Roddy Doyle..The Barrytown Trilogy and the Woman Who Walked into Doors were wonderful. So maybe my expectations are too high. I've only read about three of the stories in Bullfighting, and already I don't like it. It's as though the author is doing a Roddy Doyle impression. Or maybe someone else wrote it in his style. The stories are maudlin and pointless. The main characters in the stories I read are aging men with no ability to relate their inner thoughts. This makes for boring...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Sam Quixote rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The main characters in these short stories by the brilliant Roddy Doyle all have a similar trait to them - they are all middle aged or older and looking back on their lives. Their lives are what most peoples' are: marriage, a career, raising children, coping with losing them when they leave, retirement, the oncoming reality of death.

In "Sleep" an old man stares at his sleeping wife, reflecting on his life, their marriage their family, and an incident years ago when their young son almost died o...more The main characters in these short stories by the brilliant Roddy Doyle all have a similar trait to them - they are all middle aged or older and looking back on their lives. Their lives are what most peoples' are: marriage, a career, raising children, coping with losing them when they leave, retirement, the oncoming reality of death.

In "Sleep" an old man stares at his sleeping wife, reflecting on his life, their marriage their family, and an incident years ago when their young son almost died of asthma. In "The Plate" a young couple in the early stages of their relationship argue until the man realises the pain he feels is real and that he has kidney stones. "The Slave" is about a man past middle age, reflecting on his life, post-children (they've moved out) and how he'll cope going forward. And so on.

Which isn't to say they're bad for having an unified theme, in fact coupled with Doyle's deceptively easy prose, they're quite enjoyable to read. I found "The Photograph" about a group of friends carrying on while one of them slowly dies of cancer to be very moving and the denouement perfect. Same with "Teaching" where a man looks back on his career as a school teacher, reflecting on the repetitiveness of teaching, his own lonely life, and how he's helped some of the kids he teaches. It was definitely the most thoughtful piece of the collection and my favourite.

My summaries of these stories don't really do justice to the overall feel of them. To say that someone reflects on their life is to give brevity to something far more profound and reading these stories there is a profundity in them that is very real to the reader. In fact it's this level of focus that I think is where the title comes in - "Bullfighting" isn't about the bloodsport but about fighting against the bulls**t of everyday life, that each of the characters in the book is realising something inescapable about themselves, something they can't reframe in their minds.

Like all of Roddy Doyle's books I enjoyed it and found "Bullfighting" to be no less a pleasant experience. But despite that and the fact that there wasn't any one story I found to be a waste of time, the lightness of touch in the stories makes me think I won't remember them for very long and that even the ones I did like will be hard to recall in a year's time, maybe less. It's the lack of memorable aspects to the stories that makes me think this isn't one of his best books. "Bullfighting" is a decent read and good for whiling away a few hours, but strangely insubstantial for a book dealing with such weighty issues. (less)

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Sep 17, 2011 Sam Quixote rated it 3 of 5 stars

The main characters in these short stories by the brilliant Roddy Doyle all have a similar trait to them - they are all middle aged or older and looking back on their lives. Their lives are what most peoples' are: marriage, a career, raising children, coping with losing them when they leave, retirement, the oncoming reality of death.

In "Sleep" an old man stares at his sleeping wife, reflecting on his life, their marriage their family, and an incident years ago when their young son almost died o...more The main characters in these short stories by the brilliant Roddy Doyle all have a similar trait to them - they are all middle aged or older and looking back on their lives. Their lives are what most peoples' are: marriage, a career, raising children, coping with losing them when they leave, retirement, the oncoming reality of death.

In "Sleep" an old man stares at his sleeping wife, reflecting on his life, their marriage their family, and an incident years ago when their young son almost died of asthma. In "The Plate" a young couple in the early stages of their relationship argue until the man realises the pain he feels is real and that he has kidney stones. "The Slave" is about a man past middle age, reflecting on his life, post-children (they've moved out) and how he'll cope going forward. And so on.

Which isn't to say they're bad for having an unified theme, in fact coupled with Doyle's deceptively easy prose, they're quite enjoyable to read. I found "The Photograph" about a group of friends carrying on while one of them slowly dies of cancer to be very moving and the denouement perfect. Same with "Teaching" where a man looks back on his career as a school teacher, reflecting on the repetitiveness of teaching, his own lonely life, and how he's helped some of the kids he teaches. It was definitely the most thoughtful piece of the collection and my favourite.

My summaries of these stories don't really do justice to the overall feel of them. To say that someone reflects on their life is to give brevity to something far more profound and reading these stories there is a profundity in them that is very real to the reader. In fact it's this level of focus that I think is where the title comes in - "Bullfighting" isn't about the bloodsport but about fighting against the bulls**t of everyday life, that each of the character's in the book is realising something inescapable about themselves, that's something they can't reframe in their minds.

Like all of Roddy Doyle's books I enjoyed it and found "Bullfighting" to be no less a pleasant experience. But despite that and the fact that there wasn't any one story I found to be a waste of time, the lightness of touch in the stories makes me think I won't remember them for very long and that even the ones I did like will be hard to recall in a year's time, maybe less. And it's this lack of memorable aspects to the stories that makes me think this isn't one of his best books. So, a decent read and good for whiling away a few hours, but strangely insubstantial for a book dealing with such weighty issues. (less)

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Sep 12, 2011 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you're of a certain age and gender -a mid forties male - then I'd highly recommend this book. Doyle has written a book of stories centering on the lives of various middle-aged males , all living on working class estates on Dublin's northside. He writes about these men who are all caught up in an almost banal, humdrum existence, struggling to deal with the recession, unemployment, aging, bereavement, illness, divorce and fatherhood. Doyle's skill is to make these stories funny and entertaining...more

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Jun 14, 2012 julia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Roddy Doyle's writing seems very true, but I think that I will connect more with the themes and characters in these short stories when I am in middle age myself. He clearly loves his characters, despite drinking problems, indiscretions and weaknesses, and subtly describes marriage and friendships in a sometimes devastating, but always hopeful way. Still, these stories are about the autumns of people's lives, and I'm not there yet.

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Jan 03, 2013 Audrey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Whilst short stories aren't always the best, I enjoyed these glimpses into the lives of ageing men and Roddy Doyle's writing style has such an alluring rhytym.. It is this period in life which brings on interesting change and makes one think about what our own lives are all about. I felt myself enjoying the themes of estrangement and bitterness that continue throughout the book, bringing the stories together.

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Dec 12, 2012 Cat Trites added it

I loved this collection, and read it in about a day - not something I would recommend. It's thought provoking and often quite depressing, but strangely uplifting, too.

The glimpses we get of these men's lives show that though they may not be explicitly "happy" - boring, or nonexistent jobs, children leaving the nest, marriages on the rocks - it's okay. Their lives are 'normal,' and sometimes that's a good thing.

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Jun 16, 2011 Marge rated it 4 of 5 stars

These stories made me think, laugh, feel, laugh, cry, wonder, remember, lament. They are lovely stories, full of real middle-age anxieties. Much has been lost by the men in these stories, but they are still here, still trying. My favorite story is "Animals," which I found to be astonishingly sweet. These stories remind me of Raymond Carver and James Joyce, with a bit of Beckett thrown in. Sad but worth it.

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Aug 26, 2012 Kenneth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A collection of short stories all on the subject of Irish men getting older. Each one presents a different facet for example relationships ending, children growing up, friends. There are some gems and one or two endings which left me staring into space afterwards but overall the impression is of a lack of variety or versatility. There's also a common link between each story but I've seen others do that with a bit more subtlety and so, by comparison, it feels a clumsy device.

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Jul 26, 2011 Suzanne rated it 3 of 5 stars

This collection of stories wasn't nearly as good as his previous work. Maybe I'm just too close to old age to want to read about growing old & alone, living in a house with a spouse that doesn't know you exist, growing apart. And, at this point in the economy, reading about all these unemployed men doesn't feel hopeful. I sure loved his early work & even the last set of stories I read. Still well written, just not as interesting.

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Dec 16, 2012 Derek Bridge rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This collection of short stories is a book of two halves. All of the stories are about men: their pride, their bravado, their inner frailty. And in the first six stories, their inner voices are wholly believable, touching and funny. But the ground shifts in the seventh story, and the subsequent six lack that believability and are less satisfactory for it.

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Feb 10, 2012 Rick rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading Doyle's collection of stories-mostly about aging males in Dublin and its environs. Doyle is grand-a word used repeatedly by his characters and I am guessing the average Dubliner. Most short stories blend together for me and these did the same but there were still many pleasurable moments and Doyle is a writer always worth reading.

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Mar 11, 2012 Bob Kavanagh rated it 5 of 5 stars

This collection of short stories by Roddy Doyle is engrossing and contemplatitive. I found myself identifying with the protaginists in most of the tales , and I found all of the stories a wonderful read. I would highly recommend this book particularily to those who are male and middle aged like me.

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Apr 25, 2013 Rick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A bit strange, very calm, a bit distant, but I really liked this. My favorite short story here is Animals, for me a ***** one. A book that has the power to bring you in a trance while talking about very ordinary people leading very oridinary lives. A bit sad sometimes, but so is life.

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Apr 11, 2012 Larissa Seda rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 29, 2011 Nan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Roddy Doyle is a good writer, no, a fuckin' grand writer. But these stories suffer from a sameness that is unrelenting. They are 13 different views of the same aging male. Some stories were much better than others. I liked the surprise of "Blood", the poignancy of "Animals".

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About Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle (Irish: Ruaidhrí Ó Dúill) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Several of his books have been made into successful films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. He won the Booker Prize in 1993.

Doyle grew up in Kilbarrack, Dublin. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from University College, Dublin. He spent several years as an English and geography teacher before becoming...more

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