Tag Archive: James Joyce


The life and times of Flann O’Brien

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August 29, 2018

NO LAUGHING MATTER by Anthony Cronin (First published by Grafton Books, 1989)

984085There are certain novels, like Robert Musil’s ‘The Man Without Qualities’, that I find too daunting to even attempt and others, such as Malcolm Lowry’s ‘Under The Volcano’ that I have tried but failed to complete.

‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ by Flann O’Brien was, until this year, gathering dust in my unfinished pile. I have Anthony Cronin’s candid and informative biography of O’Brien to thank for finally completing this short, comic but notoriously challenging novel.

Cronin skillfully puts the work into a literary and historical context while bluntly presenting the man behind it as a sad character. Continue reading →

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What makes Rabbit run

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February 11, 2016

RABBIT, RUN by John Updike (Penguin Books, First published, 1971)

235845Powerful works of fiction are not dependent on the nobility or likability of the characters.

Two of my favorite fictional creationd are Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov from Crime And Punishment and Mervyn Peake’s Steerpike from the Gormenghast trilogy. Each are prime examples of men behaving badly motivated by a bitter and twisted ambition.  Their ruthless and murderous actions are deplorable but they are both fascinatingly complex characters.

Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom is in a wholly different kettle of fish. There is nothing endearing about him and the very banality of his failings mean that he barely qualifies as an anti-hero. He is not a killer, nor does he crave power but his selfishness, random lustfulness and frustration are ugly traits that infect the lives around him.

A one time basketball star, he is unable to come to terms with a humdrum life with a dead-end job and a dismal marriage. He wants out but has nowhere to run.

Updike’s cynical depiction of the human condition is so absolute that we are pitched into the mire of Rabbit’s squallid affairs without a moral compass. We are not required to condone or condemn his actions nor to sympathize when he hits rock bottom to the point that : “He feels underwater, caught in chains of transparent slime, ghosts of the urgent ejaculations he has spat into the mild bodies of women”. Continue reading →

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IAN McEWAN ON CHILDREN, FAITH AND THE LAW

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June 28, 2015

THE CHILDREN ACT by Ian McEwan (Vintage Books, 2014)

With this novella’s strong focus on the burden of mortality and the melancholy reflections on ‘what-ifs’ from the past, it seems to me that, not for the first time, Ian McEwan takes a lot of inspiration from James Joyce’s Dubliners and ‘from The Dead’ in particular.

The delicate line that divides life and death centres on the fictional case of a 17-year-old boy, Adam Henry, who will almost certainly die unless he receives a blood transfusion. Since he has not quite reached the age of consent, the decision over his treatment rests with his parents who are both Jehovah’s Witnesses.

McEwan is an Atheist but he is interested in the nature of belief so is not about to score cheap points criticising the rigid application of religious principles. The opposition to transfusions is therefore presented as a serious moral dilemma rather than merely the result of blinkered thinking.

Continue reading →

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VIRGINIA WOOLF: A LIFE OF HEROISM

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June 14, 2015

VIRGINIA WOOLF biography by Hermione Lee (Vintage Books, 1996)

leeVirginia Woolf’s life story is one that is continually being re-evaluated. After all, it was fully  two decades after her suicide in 1941 before she began to be more widely acknowledged as a literary great and a feminist icon.

Even so, there are still far too many (mostly male) detractors who will routinely belittle the achievements of Woolf. Hermione Lee recalls that as a student she was taught to regard her as a “minor modernist”, not fit to be ranked alongside Joyce, T.S. Eliot or D.H. Lawrence.

She also recounts a revealing (and humorous) story of a St Ives bookseller who decided to take advantage of Woolf’s association with one of her former homes but only had a vague idea of who she was. He put up a sign which read : ‘Talland House. Home of Virginia Woolf, wife of the famous novelist”. Continue reading →

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A BRIEF TASTE OF TRIESTE

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April 6, 2015

Piazza d’Unità d’Italia in Trieste

I’m not going to try to bluff my way through Trieste’s historic links to the Habsburg Empire. Still, it is evident even to a historically challenged visitor like myself that the city’s northerly location on the Slovenian border sets it apart from other Italian centres. Travel writer Jan Morris described it as having a “prickly grace”.

The Piazza Unità d’Italia opens onto the seafront and is a splendid centrepiece yet while much of the architecture is similarly impressive and stately, there’s also an unmistakable air of faded glory. Many buildings in the back streets are badly maintained or semi-derelict. Some of the damage is doubtless due to the Bora, a notoriously high wind that regularly blasts through the city at hurricane force. On my last day of a short weekend break it was very blustery although I’m sure locals would classify these as light breezes. Continue reading →

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