Review
At last the Irish join the internet blogging ‘tradition’, and well worth the wait, says Jonathan Guckian
- RanDumb: the Adventures of an Irish Guy in LA
- Liberties Press
The ‘Irish-American’ Dream
The rise of the blog has been monumental.
As the youth tweet the hours away, their writing styles are changing, influenced by the instant message and the status update. In the fast-paced dimension of the internet, there is no time for detailed description, no need for comprehensive narratives. This is a digital language for a digital world.
The bloggers, however, have yet to effectively reach out from the computer screens. They are merely making their first tentative steps into the land that lies outside of the information superhighway: the real world, the world of literature. Now it is the turn of the Irish, and it has been a long time coming. RanDumb: the Adventures of an Irish Guy in LA, at first glance, appears to be nothing more than what one might expect: predictable tales of drunken misdemeanours and picking up women. Indeed, on one level, it is exactly that, and a thoroughly entertaining read that will make you ‘LOL’ -laugh out loud – as so many have done on Mark Hayes’ blog.
However, what RanDumb really reveals is the dead honest truth to a dreaming audience: the difficulty of ‘taking a shot’ in a foreign country, with no friends, little money and even less common sense. Hayes’ creates a caricature of the American dream as it has now become: plastic.
Despite the subject matter, RanDumb is an intelligently put-together, often satirical analysis of the times we live in.
