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Title: The Best of Myles (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series) by Flann O'Brien ISBN: 1-56478-215-8 Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr Pub. Date: August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant
Comment: Flann O'Brian is absolutely one of the greatest practitioners of language. This collection of his work, "The Best Of Myles", is some of the finest writing I have ever had the pleasure to read. Gaelic, English, French, German, and Latin, are 5 languages he writes fluently. He is the personification of all that is famous of Irish Wit. There appear to be few topics he did not comment upon or release a withering appraisal with pinpoint precision.
Mr. O'Brian wrote for a daily newspaper until his death in 1966. The volume and quality of the written material he produced is amazing. This 400-page book is one of five that are available and that I intend to read. There is virtually nothing about his personal history in this volume, so hopefully there is a biography in print documenting the time he spent learning and practicing his craft. The only downside to this book is that some is in Gaelic with no translation, and there are many articles that will seem to exist in isolation if the reader does not have some knowledge of Irish History. Even if these commentaries were removed, the balance of the work would still be a remarkable literary performance.
Some of the best pieces were his comments on the affectation in so many facets of daily life. And his specific attacks on, "bores", and all the pretensions of the world of modern art, and those who would pretend to posses knowledge of which they are bereft. He creates institutes and foundations and companies dedicated to servicing frauds and exposing the truth. Much is for pure fun, but like all humor contains truth. He offers the services of a company that will come to the home of any illiterate with a library, and his people will either rummage through your books for a pittance, or for a more substantial sum, will dog-ear pages, write brilliant marginalia, and leave tickets and programs to various cultural events as though they were misplaced bookmarks. And for those who have the funds, books will receive forged inscriptions from their authors, and letters of thanks to the book's owner for their help with a particularly difficult passage.
This book came at the end of 2001 for me. I hate lists of the best of the year; however nothing I have read this year surpasses this book, absolutely nothing!
Rating: 5
Summary: The best of Flann
Comment: Good humour is something everybody likes and I yearn for. For quite a long time I thought that there could hardly be anything better, or at least as good as Ephraim Kishon's short satires or Douglas Adams' space phantasmagories. It was hard even to imagine something like that because I was sure my stomach would disintegrate after something like that. And than I ran into Flann O'Brien's The Best of Myles. Indeed, that was the first time for me to get familiar with him and certainly the best possible. His columns are far than hillarious, obviously because he plays with things we consider as common, everyday problems, and maybe not even problems. All the wild thoughts one could get in moments of being very bored O'Brien would write down and bring to their final reductio ad absurdum. He wouldn't wait to be stopped, he would just carry on scribbling complete nonsense, dipping even into some other languages like Latin or Gaelic in a wild rage of an admirable inspiration.
Yes, one more thing that admire him for. He would deal with Gaelic and even write in it, he would mock with politics and politicians, with history and society and even so, he managed to stay completely non-political. At least he left his columns that way. The Best of Myles is best to read before his longer and more ambitious works like The Third Policeman or At Swim-Two-Birds. And also after them.
Rating: 4
Summary: Five for peerless Myles; zero for the editing.
Comment: this compilation contains, without qualification, THE funniest writing of the twentieth century, so it seems churlish to list complaints. Some of these are unavoidably the nature of the material - Myles na Gopaleen wrote a regular column for an Irish newspaper for a quarter of a century, so the very local concerns discussed in some of the pieces render them impenetrable to all but Irish historians.
The biggest problem is with the editing, or lack thereof. There are no explanatory notes offering historical, social or political context; there are no translatoins of the many German, Latin, Irish etc. interpellations. One could argue that this leaves us in the same position as those first newspaper readers, but Myles' predominantly middle-class audience could boast a sound classical education and a greater familiarity with the allusions so liberally scattered here than we do today.
Finally, the decision not to print the pieces chronologically (none of them are dated), but by subject, distorts the work, handicaps its versatility and can lead to repetition and tedium.
That 'the Best of Myles' remains one of the last century's few genuinely important books is entirely due to the indestructible persona(e) of Myles himself, hypercultured, alcoholic, visionary verbal contortionist with pretensions to aristocratic heritage. His phlegmatic invective at local problems such as sewage systems and the civil service are less valuable than his assault on language as it had (has?) degenerated into cliche and received opinion in the culturally sterile Ireland of the 1940s and 50s; and in his post-modern project of demolishing hierarchies of linguistic and artistic endeavour. Reading Myles has a bracing effect - he forces you out of habitual mental laziness; forces you to think HARDER.
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Title: Further Cuttings: From Cruiskeen Lawn (The John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series) by Flann O'Brien, Kevin O'Nolan ISBN: 1564782417 Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr Pub. Date: June, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien, William H. Gass ISBN: 156478181X Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr Pub. Date: August, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Third Policeman (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series) by Flann O'Brien, Denis Donoghue ISBN: 156478214X Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr Pub. Date: March, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Dalkey Archive (Irish Literature Series) by Flann O'Brien ISBN: 1564781720 Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr Pub. Date: October, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story About the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien, Patrick C. Power, Ralph Steadman ISBN: 1564780910 Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr Pub. Date: March, 1996 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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