The Complete Novels of Flann O'Brien: Introduction by Keith Donohue Contributor(s): O'Brien, Flann (Author), Donohue, Keith (Introduction by) |
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ISBN: 0307267490 ISBN-13: 9780307267498 Publisher: Everyman's Library
WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD! Click here for our low price guarantee Binding Type: Hardcover Published: January 2008 Click for more in this series: Everyman's Library |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Literary - Fiction | Psychological - Fiction | Classics |
Dewey: FIC |
LCCN: 2008270439 |
Series: Everyman's Library |
Physical Information: 1.59" H x 5.4" W x 8.1" L (1.84 lbs) 824 pages |
Features: Bibliography, Bookmark, Dust Cover, Price on Product, Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents |
Review Citations: New Yorker (The) 02/11/2008 pg. 148 Library Journal 03/01/2008 pg. 130 |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Flann O'Brien, along with Joyce and Beckett, is part of the holy trinity of modern Irish literature. His five novels-collected here in one volume-are a monument to his inspired lunacy and gleefully demented genius.
O'Brien's masterpiece, At Swim-Two-Birds, is an exuberant literary send-up and one of the funniest novels of the twentieth century. The novel's narrator is writing a novel about another man writing a novel, in a Celtic knot of interlocking stories. The riotous cast of characters includes figures "stolen" from Gaelic legends, along with assorted students, fairies, ordinary Dubliners, and cowboys, some of whom try to break free of their author's control and destroy him.
The narrator of The Third Policeman, who has forgotten his name, is a student of philosophy who has committed murder and wanders into a surreal hell where he encounters such oddities as the ghost of his victim, three policeman who experiment with space and time, and his own soul (who is named "Joe").
The Poor Mouth, a bleakly hilarious portrait of peasants in a village dominated by pigs, potatoes, and endless rain, is a giddy parody aimed at those who would romanticize Gaelic culture. A na ve young orphan narrates the deadpan farce The Hard Life, and The Dalkey Archive is an outrageous satiric fantasy featuring a mad scientist who uses relativity to age his whiskey, a policeman who believes men can turn into bicycles, and an elderly, bar-tending James Joyce. With a new Introduction by Keith Donohue |
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