He’s (probably) my favourite Irish author. I love his work both as Flann O’Brien and as Myles na gCopaleen. Now, I bet I’m not the only one. So, own up, you lovers of the ultimate shaggy-dog story teller.
I love FOB! Give me the Third Policeman any day. And if I die and go to Ireland, I want to be Teague McGettigan.
Careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
3 wishes I grant you,
3 whishes, big and small,
but wish a forth and you lose them all.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Wizz
Right-on Wommaroo.
Have you by any chance found the current thread on which Claudine asked me to explain my signature? It’s an implicit Flann O’B reference.
When I read him (just after reading Joyce’s Ulysses), my main regret was that I knew less about his Irish mythology references than I did about Joyce’s “classical” (i.e. Graeco-Roman) ones, but I still enjoyed his extended joke just as much as Joyce’s more pretentious one.
On 2002-12-13 16:02, Roger O’Keeffe wrote:
When I read him (just after reading Joyce’s Ulysses), my main regret was that I knew less about his Irish mythology references than I did about Joyce’s “classical” (i.e. Graeco-Roman) ones, but I still enjoyed his extended joke just as much as Joyce’s more pretentious one.
One of my favorite bits is the fact that O’Brian make Joyce a religous waiter in a little resort town north of Dublin in the Dalkey Archives. When you read Joyce’s account of how Ulysses came about and what he thinks of it: hilarious.
On 2002-12-13 16:02, Roger O’Keeffe wrote:
Right-on Wommaroo.Have you by any chance found the current thread on which Claudine asked me to explain my signature? It’s an implicit Flann O’B reference.
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I thought it might be Roger, but I haven’t worked it out yet. I just love the Myles stuff where he appears to be writing Gaelic but when you look closely it’s English with Gaelic spelling. I could go on … and on …
See the Living Tradition thread, Wombers.
On 2002-12-15 17:11, Roger O’Keeffe wrote:
See the Living Tradition thread, Wombers.
Just did, Roger. Very nice. I should have got it too. Although my maternal grandmother was the most recent close relative to be truly fluent in Gaelic—her first language—her descendants have a smattering. It’s close to an Australian joke about a probably mythical firm of plumbers called ‘Danny Boy Plumbers’. On the side of the van they have the slogan ‘The pipes, the pipes are calling.’ Now I don’t know if there have really been any properly confirmed sightings but the myth persists.
I was quite surprised to find in Joyce (either Ulysses or Finnegans Wake, can’t remember which) the phrase “hit the pipes, Danny Boy”.
I love At-Swim-Two-Birds; I bought a copy at Hodges & Figgis near Trinity College and it’s one of my most prized books.
Technically it’s a great achievement, the mock-epic mythological bits are hilarious.
Just finished The Third Policeman: absolutely wonderful. I love the footnotes.
1 Another of de Selby’s weaknesses was his inability to distinguish between men and women. After the famous occasion when the Countess Schnapper had been presented to him (her Glauben ueber Ueberalls is still read) he made flattering references to ‘that man’, ‘that cultured old gentleman’, ‘crafty old boy’ and so on . . . . In the few references which he ever made to his own mysterious family he called his mother ‘a very distinguished gentleman’ (Lux Mundi p. 307), ‘a man of stern habits’ (ibid, p. 308) and ‘a man’s man’ (Kraus: Briefe, xvii).
Hilarious.
Carol
Yes, if you don’t read those footnotes you’re missing out on a lot. The Poor Mouth is also a riot. It has Gaelic speaking Gaels discussing Gaelic in a most Gaelic fashion.
Ah yes, The Plain People of Ireland speaking Irish When It Was Neither Profitable Nor Popular 
I could talk about FOB all night but here’s me Bus.
Slan,
D.
I’ll let you know; just purchased two softcover books from Amazon.
Philo
Keats was once a potato factor and, while delivering a ton of potatoes, was attacked by a ferocious pet pomeranian.
He kicked the dog and carried on. " ‘When I make up my mind to deliver spuds,’ he remarked afterward to Chapman, ‘I have no intention of letting a pomme de terre me.’ Chapman took no notice."
Chapman and Keats went on tour with a pair of performing bears. Keats refused to believe they were tame and harmless, but consented to feed them. Chapman found Keats injecting a local anesthetic into the bears. They were numb but upright. “Chapman flew into a feverish temper and demanded the reason for this brutal and cynical outrage. ‘There’s safety in numb bears,’ Keats said.”
t is not generally known that…
O excuse me.
Keats and Chapman (in the old days) spent several months in the county Wicklow prospecting for ochre deposits. That was before the day of (your) modern devices for geological divination. With Keats and Chapman it was literally a case of smelling the stuff out. The pair of them sniffed their way into Glenmalure and out of it again, and then snuffled back to Woodenbridge. In a field of turnips near Avoca Keats suddenly got the pungent effluvium of a vast ochre mine and lay for hours face down in the muck delightedly permeating his nostrils with the perfume of hidden wealth. No less lucky was Chapman. He had nosed away in the direction of Newtonmountkennedy and came racing back shouting that he too had found a mine. He implored Keats to come and confirm his nasal diagnosis. Keats agreed. He accompanied Chapman to the site and lay down in the dirt to do his sniffing.
‘Great mines stink alike,’ he said.
My wife would hate this. She despises puns. I’ll have to buy this book for her. 