- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd (Oct 21 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0715629417
- ISBN-13: 978-0715629413
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Civil servant and satirist Brian O'Nolan (1911-1966), aka Flann O'Brien (for his comic novels) or Myles na gCopaleen (for his humorous, highly opinionated newspaper column), is resurrected in this collection of his "Cruiskeen Lawn" columns for the Irish Times. Culled from na gCopaleen's WWII period work and never before published in book form, the columns veer from virulent invective to "a good laugh." Jackson notes that "the original reader opening his morning paper had no idea whether Myles was going to amuse, anger, surprise, disgust or bore him," and his selection preserves the chronological order of the original publication in an effort to "restore something of Myles' unpredictability." However, the erratic groupings, tacked together by the editor's enigmatic chapter titles and notes, appear inchoate and limp, compared to other collections of na gCopaleen's columns (The Best of Myles and Further Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn). Still, na gCopaleen's penchant for offbeat subjects (such as Ibsen's dandruff), his caustic wit ("I am, as you know, an Irish person and I yield to gnomon in my admiration and respect for the old land.") and playful puns ("As for drink, they tell me it gives you a red nose, a complaint that can be passed on to your children. Damn nosa how red it is!") offer a hilarious glimpse of both the meaningful and mundane in WWII Ireland. When the layers are peeled away, they reveal an imaginative comic genius with a genuine gift for language. Hector McDonnell's cartoons add to the hilarity.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
From Booklist
For a quarter-century, O'Brien (ne Brian O'Nolan) wrote, under the name Myles na gCopaleen ("Myles of the ponies"), up to six installments per week of his Irish Times (Dublin) column "Cruiskeen Lawn" ("a full jug"). Despite five previous gatherings of "cuttings," there remains enough "Lawn," just from 1940 to 1945, for this book --manna (from heaven?) for those who consider him the funniest twentieth-century writer in English (he also wrote whole columns in Irish and puns in Latin, French, German, Spanish, etc.). Verbal, conceptual, and punctuational play was his forte, deployed in the service of a slashing, dour wit given to flights of sublime ridiculousness. As Myles, he was a sage, if drink-sodden and tobacco-wracked, elder whose philanthropical advice and enterprise went unheeded when they did not result in unforeseen disaster. He also reported the adventures of Keats and Chapman (yes, the poet and the translator of Homer --don't ask; read!), the doings of the Brother, dialogues with (apparently) his many selves, and the idiocies of Irish politics, government, and culture. Priceless! Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An emphatic, opinionated and sharply resonating discourse,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: At War (Paperback)
Compiled, edited, and with an informative introduction by John Wyse Jackson, At War is an impressive and much appreciated collection of the columns of Brian O'Nolan (1911-1966) which were originally penned for "The Irish Times" during the war years of 1940 to 1945 under the pseudonym of Flann O'Brien. An emphatic, opinionated and sharply resonating discourse that simply does not back off or back down, At War is a stirring account of real problems in troubled times and of one man's determination to speak out and be heard. One of the titles in the outstanding "Lannan Selection Irish Literature Series" from Dalkey Archive press, At War is a welcome and recommended addition to Irish Cultural Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An emphatic, opinionated and sharply resonating discourse,
By Midwest Book Review - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: At War (Paperback)
Compiled, edited, and with an informative introduction by John Wyse Jackson, At War is an impressive and much appreciated collection of the columns of Brian O'Nolan (1911-1966) which were originally penned for "The Irish Times" during the war years of 1940 to 1945 under the pseudonym of Flann O'Brien. An emphatic, opinionated and sharply resonating discourse that simply does not back off or back down, At War is a stirring account of real problems in troubled times and of one man's determination to speak out and be heard. One of the titles in the outstanding "Lannan Selection Irish Literature Series" from Dalkey Archive press, At War is a welcome and recommended addition to Irish Cultural Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.
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