Specify Books As The Best of Myles
| Original Title: | The Best of Myles |
| ISBN: | 1564782158 (ISBN13: 9781564782151) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Myles na gCopaleen
Paperback | Pages: 400 pages Rating: 4.23 | 655 Users | 52 Reviews
Particularize Out Of Books The Best of Myles
| Title | : | The Best of Myles |
| Author | : | Myles na gCopaleen |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 400 pages |
| Published | : | August 1st 1999 by Dalkey Archive Press (first published 1968) |
| Categories | : | European Literature. Irish Literature. Humor. Fiction. Writing. Journalism. Cultural. Ireland. Essays. Literature |
Narrative In Favor Of Books The Best of Myles
The Best of Myles is a selection from the newspaper articles of Flann O’Brien, author of At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman. The pieces, all for The Irish Times, were written initially under the pseudonym An Broc which means the badger. The name was then changed to An Cruiskeen Lawn, which means the full little jug, but was soon switched to Myles na gCopaleen and then to the definitive version, Myles na Gopaleen.(It seems the reviewer has been reading Wikipedia -FO'B)
Erm...the name Myles na Gopaleen means ‘Myles of the little horses’.
(The correct translation is ‘Myles of the ponies’; the principality of the pony should never be subjugated to the imperialism of the horse - FO’B).
Flann O’Brien was against imperialism on principle, needless to say.
(Why say it in that case? And if there’s any whiskey in the case, I’ll have some of it -FO’B).
The..the articles appeared regularly from the early 1940s until shortly before Mr O'Brien, who must surely qualify as Ireland's greatest comic genius, d-died on April 1st 1966.
(Just say I died on April Fool’s Day and be done with it -FO’B).
The n..name Myles na Gopaleen was inspired by a character in Dion Boucicault’s play, The Colleen Bawn, which dates from 1860. In Boucicault's melodrama, aimed at American audiences, Myles was a lovelorn Irish peasant who..who distilled alcohol in his spare time.
(No half-measures, please, Myles was a full-time poteen maker and drinker - FO’B).
Another of Boucicault’s plays had inspired O’Brien’s compatriot James Joyce to borrow the character Shaun from Arrah Na Pogue, written in 1864. Shaun became a central figure in Finnegans Wake, which incidentally was published in 1939, the same year as O’Brien’s first novel, At Swim-Two-Birds.
(Do you have to underline that I will be forever eclipsed by Joyce? - FO’B).
While the first few pieces Flann O'Brien contributed to The Irish Times were written in the Irish language, the rest were written completely in English.
(That is not accurate: the columns frequently reverted to Irish, eg, the 'Corkadorka' articles were written in Irish and several sections of 'The Brother' series were written in a version of Irish transliterated for English speakers, eg, ‘bee kuramack lay the hell’ which means, 'be more careful please'. Another set of articles, 'Literally from the Irish', though in English they were written, an Irish syntax they were having - FO’B)
The..the topics covered in The Best of Myles range from steam trains to music, from the shortage of alcohol during the war to the abundance of cliché during the same period.
(What is a list of things always said to do? Range. What is always the opposite of a shortage? An abundance -FO'B (groaning)).
S...since Mr O’Brien’s two best known novels, At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman were completed before he began writing for The Irish Times, many critics believe that..that directing his energies towards filling a daily newspaper column with ever more witty and creative material prevented the author from fulfilling his destiny as the leading Irish novelist of the twentieth century.
(What action must always be taken in relation to our energies? They must be directed. What must a destiny always be? Fulfilled. I begin to suspect this reviewer hasn’t read the book. If she had, she’d have learned from the ‘The Catechism of Cliché’ section to avoid such worn-out phrases - FO’B).
Hmm...while At Swim-Two-Birds was greeted with acclaim (groan -FO’B), a fire in the warehouse where the copies were stored meant that it didn’t reach a very wide audience. The Third Policeman was
(It was not lost, it was simply lying in the back of a drawer. And before you say anything smart, and I feel you are working up to it, I’m entitled, as the author of 'The Catechism of Cliché', to create a clichéd destiny for my own manuscript if I choose -FO’B).
However, some of the ideas and scenarios from The Third Policeman apparently made their way from the back of the drawer into a later novel called Dalkey Archive which was published in 1964. Incidentally, James Joyce is a character in that novel - after forging his own obituary to avoid being drafted into the army in 1939, he turns up in a village on the outskirts of Dublin where, under an assumed name, he works as a barman.
(The reviewer has been reading Wikipedia again I see -FO’B).
Phew...I think there is nothing more to be said except that The Best of Myles is only one of the selections from Flann O’ Brian's journalistic career that now exist. The following titles are also available:
Myles Before Myles
Myles Away From Dublin
The Hair Of The Dogma
Further Cuttings From Cruiskeen Lawn
Flann At War
The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman
(Someone is surely buying a lot of pints with the royalties from all these books and it certainly isn't me -FO’B. Furthermore, what completely non-existent thing is invariably stated to be there? The nothing more that often remains to be said.
Ok, in what direction should I now shut? Up.
FO’B).
Rating Out Of Books The Best of Myles
Ratings: 4.23 From 655 Users | 52 ReviewsComment On Out Of Books The Best of Myles
I don't often laugh out loud at what I read. Here's an exception. I didn't like 'At Swim-two-birds' at all, but in his guise as a newspaper columnist, the author must be one of the funniest ever. It's one of those books I will dip into again and again.This sort of book is difficult to rate. Taken individually, the pieces in the book are very funny, witty, intelligent and sometimes surreal. If I was reading Myles piece once a day in the Irish Times with the different formats spread around through the year, then I'd give the content 4 stars, but as a collection the pieces suffer in context. Two or three "Keats & Chapman" sketches or The Brother pieces are amusing, but after 45 pages of Keats and Chapman, it's hard to raise even a wry smile
Unfortunately I doubt many alive today have a sufficiently detailed knowledge of all the subjects addressed to be be capable of getting all the jokes. Otherwise excellent. Especially when he came back to life to contest his insufficiently vexatious will.
The Best of Myles is a selection from the newspaper articles of Flann OBrien, author of At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman. The pieces, all for The Irish Times, were written initially under the pseudonym An Broc which means the badger. The name was then changed to An Cruiskeen Lawn, which means the full little jug, but was soon switched to Myles na gCopaleen and then to the definitive version, Myles na Gopaleen.(It seems the reviewer has been reading Wikipedia -FO'B)Erm...the name Myles
Simply the best collection available of one of the funniest writers in the English (and, for that matter, Irish) language. A number of the pieces in this are amongst the funniest, most skillful, and elegant humor pieces I've ever read, and there's some to-rate criticism in here, too.
A charming collection of column entries from one of my favourite Irish writers. The whole collection has the English-through-the-lens-of-Irish feel that characterises O'Brien's writing, with the exception of those few columns written in various flavours of Irish, which were charming, to the extent that I could follow them. At its maddest, it is stranger than The Third Policeman and At Swim Two Birds, and more light-hearted fun than An Béal Bocht. It's truly fantastic and a personal favourite,
Some clever bits, buried in 400 pages of a certain narrow tone-of-voice.
0 Comments:
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.