Flann O'Brien

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.

Both obtained upon licensed premises no doubt

Oddly I only have one.

I believe that hardback is the 2019 80th anniversary edition.

I didn't think that Darraghmac lived in Dublin.

Next to Joyce and Paul Bowles I'm pretty sure this is the author of whose work I've read the most completely.

Oddly I only have one.

I believe that hardback is the 2019 80th anniversary edition.

I didn't think that Darraghmac lived in Dublin.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 2 February 2020 20:05 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Next to Joyce and Paul Bowles

god the stink must be bad by now

well joyce is in bronze tbf

If you only have one copy and you reread it frequently, there is a serious risk of you becoming quantumly entangled with the book, due to mollycules. You will find yourself increasingly wishing to rest on shelves. Or check yourself back into libraries. Beware.

Ports plan for Brexit Irish Sea checks

"We are still in this territory of not getting clarity from the government just yet as to how they actually see trade agreements being, because if we get good trade agreements, we won't need to have certain checks."

Never forget that tenure by sochemaunce seisined by feodo copyholds in gross and reseisined through covenants of foeffseignory in frankalpuissaunce is alienable only by droit of bonfeasaunce subsisting in free-bench coigny or in re-vested copywrites of seisina facit stipidem, a fair copy bearing a 2d. stamp to be entered at the Court of Star Chamber.

Furthermore, a rent seck indentured with such frankalseignory or chartamoign charges as may be, and re-empted in Market Overt, subsists thereafter in graund serjaunty du roi, eighteen fishing smacks being deemed sufficient to transport the stuff from Lisbon.

too real

i eat my lunch under a sketch by the great man's brother

One dilly dallying civil servant recognised another

voting 'coigny'

I have just the one copy, but it's had Premier Handling*.

*Each volume to be thoroughly handled, eight leaves in each to be dog-eared, a suitable passage in not less than 25 volumes to be underlined in red pencil, and a leaflet in French on the works of Victor Hugo to be inserted as a forgotten book-mark in each. Say, £2 17s 6d. Five per cent discount for literary university students, civil servants and lady social workers

http://www.eerpublishing.com/gallacher-bohemian-belfast-and-dublin.html

Obscure stuff, from an obscure press, but this book could be quite interesting on the postwar Flann and his Dublin.

just finished 'the hard life' - brisk and well-observed but patently weighted with what must have been the writer's own mounting woes, very little allowed to transcend except the irrepressible brother

One of the oddest things about that book is how much is taken up with the brother (Manus?) 's letters. They fill page after page. I don't think FO'B entirely knew what he was doing in that regard.

Kind of interesting about Mr Collopy's campaign and his audience with the Pope, though.

Well, the letters don't start really happening until the final third, but then oh boy. It's almost like the narrator is being written out of his own book, which I presume intentionally-done

The narrator does otoh have the pleasure of being able to dismiss the brother's reams of advice with disillusioned curtness, so there's right of reply

I do wonder if FOB harboured an as-it-happens impossible desire to move to London at this time

Myles would reminisce about Germany.

Curse it, my mind races back to my Heidelberg days. Sonya and Lili. And Magda. And Ernst Schmutz, Georg Geier, Theodor Winklemann, Efrem Zimbalist, Otto Grun. And the accordion player Kurt Schachmann. ... Beer and music and midnight swims in the Neckar. Chats in erse with Kun O'Meyer and John Marquess... Alas, those chimes. Und als wir nahmen/ Abscheid vor den Toren/ beim letzten Kuss, da hab' Ich Klar erkannt/ dass Ich mein Herz/ in Heidelberg verloren/ MEIN HERZ/ es schlagt am Neck-ar-strand! Tumpty tumpty tum.

He couldn't go anywhere, he had to support the family. The only escape was alcohol.