Flann O'Brien

Kind of an ideal state of being imago has going there, tbh

all noted

https://i2.wp.com/www.onegreenplanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/coconut-flan1.jpg?fit=1200%2C750

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/d/d1/1984burton.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131102231148

this shit is acatalectic
a-c-a-t-a-l-e-c-t-i-c

It's catholic fyi

It wasn't Catholic enough. He became afraid of it.

OK I got to the guessing-names bit that Father Ted obviously ripped off and was dissolved in laughter on the tube. I wonder how much of Father Ted is just reconsidered O'Brien...

Great holy suffering indiarubber bowls of brown stirabout!

Music tie-in here.

I think it's more likely the novel steals from Ted tbh

well was a rug ever pulled

Have read ten pages of ASTB and it is obviously some kind of personal grail

the list of birds alone has me forever

well, yes

the maritime wren!

read, my child, and learn of the marvels it contains

FOB seems to specialise in these extended bravura sequences where all literature else is cast into a pyre. in 3P it was the underground chamber and i'll be beggared if the cress-green cress of the full seventh of that book's length that is the confusion of the tellings of finn, shanahan and lamont doesn't figure somewhere in the reckoning of which is ASTB's. unless somehow it has greater in store

I don't exactly understand that comment. Can you explain further?

I recommend THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF FLANN O'BRIEN, though not as a way of preserving any mystique.

Myles na gCopaleen’s collected columns are the best, but I read The Third Policeman a while back and it was honestly one of the strangest things I’ve ever read. I need to read it again.

By that I meant that pages 58 through 91 of ASTB make for a truly astonishing passage. I was speculating as to whether the book will have greater in store for me during the remaining course of its pages, of which I have now read 104.

Are you deliberately taking years to read this novel?

Savouring every syllable.

third policeman might be the most terrifying book i've ever read

obvs a masterpiece, as is astb

Page 104 has heralded the beginning of a section concerning a Pooka and a Good Fairy that is threatening to drown all that precedes or follows it in mirthful frenzies

love the running articles towards the start of 'the best of myles' collection, which begin with him proposing a business where he roughs up rich peoples books, so that people think they've been read, and gets more absurd each week until dublin society is being terrroized by social blackmailers

Ordered this just now cuz of this thread (Penguin Classics ed.)

The Myles stuff is incredible! I started re-reading his stuff last week, he was my favourite author for a period

If you chance to read The Dalkey Archive you will see large parts of 3rd Policeman, slightly mutated and used slightly differently.

I love the novels but never quite got into the Myles material, especially the bits not written in English.

One time I was reading At Swim-Two-Birds on the subway and an old man next to me asked me what I was reading. I mutely showed him, and he said "ah, that's a foine book. I also recommend the Dalkey Archive."

I looked over at what he was reading. It was Hamlet.

Only later did I realize that I should have said "That's a good one too. I also recommend Romeo and Juliet." What's Irish for l'esprit de l'escalier?

'a pint of plain is your only man' iirc

Ha, exactly

wow lol

Can’t believe I didn’t mention An Béal Bocht - so so good and always accurate, esp in these Brexity times when we are really all Jams O’Donnell.

Obvs his greatest achievement was writing these masterpieces while employed in the civil service though.

And mostly pissed iirc

The Brother is one of the greatest comic creations of all time.

I want to compile every proverb in this book and maybe poll them. A leg that is in halves is a slow pilgrim

Orlick's bathroom break is probably the funniest two pages in print

The brother was givin out about the seals. ‘Tumblers’ he called them. The brother says all them lads should be destroyed.

The Plain People of Ireland: Another day gone and no jokes.
Myself: Yes, curse you.

The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based upon licensed premises.

ive zero requirement for this rather natty hodges-figgis special hardback of astb but for 6.50 it's hard to justify leaving it here in the sale rack

Which one? It’s not on their site.

https://i.imgur.com/51ykimp.jpg

and now you even know where im sitting

Oh it is on there - it’s £10. Gorgeous edition.

If you mean in H&F, I haven’t been there since Bertie was Taoiseach.

hopefully youll be back before hes president wha

I see they have a vintage tractors calendar 75% off - is that what you went in for?

saturdays is H/F ----> celtic whiskey store days on dawson st, if anything catches my eye in either so be it

I've my two copies of ATSB already and that's enough to keep a man well-supplied and ready at the drop of a hat.