Flann O'Brien

Flann O'Brien was the best known pseudonym of Brian O'Nolan (born in Strabane, County Tyrone in Ireland on October 5, 1911) who also published under the name Myles na gCopaleen. He was a twentieth century Irish satirist and humorist of the nationalist tradition.

Novels

Under the name Flann O'Brien, he published a series of novels that have attracted a wide following for their bizarre humour and Modernist metafiction. At Swim-Two-Birds works entirely with borrowed (and stolen) characters from other fiction and legend, on the grounds that there are already far too many existing fictional characters, while The Third Policeman has a superficial plot about an Irish country youth's vision of hell, played against a satire of academic debate on an eccentric philosopher, and finds time to introduce the atomic theory of the bicycle. The Dalkey Archive features a character who encounters a penitent, elderly James Joyce (who never wrote any of his books and seeks only to join the Jesuit Order) working as a busboy in the resort of Dalkey and a scientist looking to suck all of the air out of the world. Other books by Flann O'Brien include The Hard Life (a fictional autobiography meant to be his "misterpiece"), and An Béal Bocht, (translated from the Irish as The Poor Mouth), which was a parody of Tomás Ó Criomhthain's autobiography An t-Oileánach .

Related Topics:
At Swim-Two-Birds - The Third Policeman - The Dalkey Archive - Irish - Tomás Ó Criomhthain's - An t-Oileánach

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As a novelist, O'Nolan was powerfully influenced by James Joyce. Indeed, he was at pains to attend the same college as Joyce, and Joyce biographer Richard Ellmann has established that O'Nolan, fully in keeping with his literary temperament, used a forged interview with Joyce's father John Joyce as part of his application. He was none the less sceptical of the Cult of Joyce which overshadowed much of Irish writing, "I declare to God if I hear that name Joyce one more time I will surely froth at the gob."

Related Topics:
James Joyce - Richard Ellmann - John Joyce

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At Swim-Two-Birds is now recognized as one of the most significant Modernist novels before 1945. Indeed it can be seen as a pioneer of postmodernism. Anthony Burgess included it on his list of 99 Great Novels. It was the last book that James Joyce, who was almost blind at the time, read and he did much to publicise it on the continent. In the United States, the novel has had a very troubled publication history. In recent years, Southern Illinois University Press has set up a Flann O'Brien Center and has begun publishing all of O'Nolan's works. Consequently, academic attention on the novel has been increasing.

Related Topics:
1945 - Anthony Burgess - United States

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