Home > Flann O'Brien

1 Early Writings

O'Nolan wrote prodigiously during his years as a student at University College Dublin, contributing to the student magazine Comhthrom Féinne under various guises, in particular the pseudonym 'Brother Barnabas'. Significantly, he composed a story during this same period entitled "Scenes in a Novel (probably posthumous) by Brother Barnabas", which anticipates many of the ideas and themes later to be found in his novel At Swim-Two-Birds. In it, the putative author of the story finds himself in riotous conflict with his characters, who are determined to follow their own paths regardless of the author's design. For example, the villain of the story, one Carruthers McDaid, intended by the author as the lowest form of scoundrel, "meant to sink slowly to absolutely the last extremeties of human degradation", instead ekes out a modest living selling kittens to old ladies and sneaking off to church without the author's consent. Meanwhile, the story's hero, Shaun Svoolish, chooses a comfortable, bourgeois life rather than romance and heroics:

'I may be a prig,' he replied, 'but I know what I like. Why can't I marry Bridie and have a shot at the Civil Service?'

'Railway accidents are fortunately rare,' I said finally, 'but when they happen they are horrible. Think it over.'

In 1934 O'Brien and his student friends founded a short-lived magazine called Blather, and again, the writing here somewhat anticipates O'Brien's later work, in this case his Cruiskeen Lawn column as Myles na gCopaleen:

'*Blather* is here. As we advance to make our bow, you will look in vain for signs of servility or of any evidence of a desire to please. We are an arrogant and depraved body of men. We are as proud as bantams and as vain as peacocks.

'"Blather doesn't care." A sardonic laugh escapes us as we bow, cruel and cynical hounds that we are. It is a terrible laugh, the laugh of lost men. Do you get the smell of porter?

'*Blather* is not to be confused with Ireland's National Newspaper, still less with Ireland's Greatest Newspaper. *Blather* is not an organ of Independent opinion, nor is Ireland more to us than a Republic, Kingdom or Commonwealth. *Blather* is a publication of the Gutter, the King Rat of the Irish Press, the paper that will achieve entirely new levels in everything that is contemptible, despicable, and unspeakable in contemporary journalism... In regard to politics, all our rat-like cunning will be directed towards making Ireland fit for the depraved readers of *Blather* to live in...

'We have probably said enough, perhaps too much. Anyhow, you have got a rough idea of the desperate class of men you are up against. Maybe you don't like us? A lot we care what you think.'

2 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 recycled characters from other fiction (and legend), on the grounds that there are already far too many fictional characters in circulation, 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 philosopher in question, De Selby, is based on Giambattista Vico, who had been a fascination of James Joyce's, and the importance of the bicycle recalls Samuel Beckett. The Dalkey Archive features a character who encounters a penitent, elderly James Joyce (who never wrote any of his books) 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 .

As a novelist, O'Nolan was powerfully influenced by James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce ( February 2, 1882 January 13, 1941) was an expatriate Irish writer and poet, and is widely considered one of the most significant writers of the 20th century. He is best known for his short story collection Dubliners ( 1914. Indeed, he was at pains to attend the same college as Joyce, and Joyce biographer Richard Ellman has established that O'Nolan, fully in keeping with his literary temperament, used a forged interview with Joyce's father John JoyceJohn Stanislaus Joyce ( 4 July 1849- 29 December 1931) was the father of writer James Joyce, and a well known Dublin man about town. The son of James and Ellen nee O'Connell) Joyce, John Joyce grew up in Cork, where his mother's family, which claimed kins as part of his application.

At Swim-Two-Birds is now recognized as one of the most significant Modernist novels before 1945Events January January 5 The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland. January 7 British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge. January 12 World War II:. Anthony BurgessJohn Anthony Burgess Wilson ( February 25, 1917 — November 25, 1993), better known by the pen name Anthony Burgess was a British writer. Life Burgess was born in Manchester, England and was left motherless at two years old by the 1918- 1919 influenza pand included it on his list of 99 Great Novels. In the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in, 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.