Myles na gCopaleen or Flann O’Brien

Cool article at the Wall Street Journal on the man from whom the Dalkey Archive Press borrowed its name:

Kenner notwithstanding, O’Brien wrote five great novels—”At Swim-Two-Birds,” “The Third Policeman,” “The Poor Mouth,” “The Hard Life” and “The Dalkey Archive.” And while it is true that few people read either Myles or Flann in O’Brien’s lifetime, no Irish writer has inspired a classier cult following: Samuel Beckett, William H. Gass, James Joyce, William Saroyan and John Updike were just a few of its members.

So was Graham Greene, on whose recommendation O’Brien’s first novel, “At Swim-Two-Birds,” was published in 1939. Dylan Thomas, who loved “At Swim,” called it “just the book to give to your sister, if she is a dirty, boozey [sic] girl.”

O’Brien blamed the commercial failure of that novel on the damage German bombers had inflicted on his British publisher, preventing the book’s wide release . . .

You Might Also Like:

More from Conversational Reading:

1. Disdain for Certain, Clear Meaning and Interpretation Everyman’s Library publishes a single-volume collection of the Irish experimentalist Flann O’Brien’s works, and John Updike reviews: The first, “At Swim-Two-Birds” (1939), is the...
2. William Gass on Dalkey’s Sandrof Achievement Award At the recent NBCC Awards, the Dalkey Archive Press was given the Sandrof lifetime achievement award. Here’s some of William Gass’s thoughts on the subject:...
3. Updike v. CT Sometimes it can be both interesting and enlightening to compare two people’s view of one book. So it is with John Updike’s and Charles Taylor’s...
4. Time Our on Lit Critics Time Out (NY) rates 6 literary critics. I think they mostly get things right–John Leonard and John Updike are definitely the cream of this crop,...
5. Menand on Dylan Louis Menand reviews the new collection of Bob Dylan interviews. As an interview subject, Dylan probably ranks a few notches above Elvis, who was...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.