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The Hard life : an exegesis of squalor

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In this inconsequential novella by Flann O'Brien, two orphans of the gormless, Finbarr and Manus, grow up next to their guardian Mr. Collopy's prodigious crock. They chafe under the old man and plot their escape. Manus dreams of cash, Finbarr of auburn hair. As part of their unconventional education, they listen with muffled groans to disputations between Collopy and regular visitor Father Fahrt on subjects theological and heretical. Guy Fawkes a hero for the ages? Aquinas a right chancer? Saints and sinners dangle from their hooks. Though dismissed by critics, this late work never fails to produce a chuckle. Its author certainly lends credence to Fahrt's contention that "a degraded social climate is essential to inspire great men to achievement in the arts," even if that climate is some dark snug a Liffey's width from the Custom House.

This novel is the anti-bildungsroman. In the typical development/coming-of-age novel, the characters have some great epiphany about life, the universe, God, and everything. O'Brien subverts that, however: the last line reads, "There, everything inside me came forth in a tidal surge of vomit." O'Brien's characters typically don't learn a damn thing about life, continue in their idleness, but somehow come through victorious (or near enough) in the end.

For those of you who have tired of Joyce, this is a more visceral and accurate portrayal of the Irishman in the days leading up to their independence. Well worth it.

In the final years of his life O'Brien decided to go back to writing and this is one of the effects. A fairly slim novella on hard times, set in the turn of the century (19th and 20th) Dublin with two orphan brothers reaching maturity under the care of a busy (in his thoughts mainly) Dubliner. The book can be funny at times but generally it lacks a clear direction. Is it a veiled criticism of the Catholic Church? If so, it is so veiled the Church failed to notice as O'Brien allegedly hoped for a censorship ban on the book.
If you fell for At Swim-Two-Birds and need more O'Brien you may try it but keep your hopes low. If this is your first O'Brien move to At Swim-Two-Birds or The Third Policeman as soon as you can and rest assured you will not regret it. Last but not least - if the combination of "Ireland", "children" and "hard times" makes you think of Angela's Ashes you can't be more wrong in this case.

Brian O'Nolan produced a great body of Irish literature in the last century, hiding as he did behind several pen names due to his public service as a civil servant not permitted officially to publish. Some of his work may thus have been lost due to lack of proper ascription.

This late work, unlike other earlier extraordinary writings, keeps both feet firmly on the ground, as if itself a victim of an overdose of Gravid Water, while ever maintaining tongue firmly in cheek. Those of Irish ascendency nevertheless appreciate deeply the preservation of patterns of speech, culture and conversation which carries this twisted tale of one man's obsession with bringing blessed relief stations to women walking publicly, the lack of same proving fatal to his wife.

Though this work begins in a desperately delightful Dickensian mode, much as Episode three in the great novel Ulysses (Gabler Edition), much as this novel, it quickly transcends such feeble nonsense by parody and mocking the hollow, manipulative form.

Some who claim to prefer this author's At Swim-Two-Birds due to its exhuberant and multi-layered complexity admit in effect they has despaired of reading it, and cast it aside unfinished, and yet claim that reading preferable to this, for this later novel remains accessible to all readers, while indicative of the greater depths. Any novel requiring annotation, as this one may well profit, is sufficiently esoteric for any such elevated reader. Meanwhile this novel is fully satisfactory for every reader, much in the way of Beckett's tragicomic Waiting for Godot: A Bilingual Edition: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts (English and French Edition).

Get over yourselves, people, and enjoy the read for once!

So this old obsessed gentleman, despairing of the city corporation doing anything for his pet project, the one which might have saved his wife, brings it to the court of last resort, the highest in the world.

You find no over-riding element of delightful Irish bull in this chronicle of that odyssey?

The conversational patterns recorded are brilliant, and nearly journalistic in their accuracy, while ever parody. Here we remain upon terra firma, unlike the also-absolutely-must-read Third Policeman.

A recommended course in reading this wonderful and rewarding writer, in this order:

The Hard Life
The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story About the Hard Life
The Third Policeman (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
At Swim-Two-Birds [AT SWIM-2-BIRDS (R)]
The Dalkey Archive (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
At War (Lannan Selection)

You will not regret it, but draw from this great comforting relief, and a blessed rest from Mr. Joyce . . .

The whole and deepest meaning of the novel is provided bY the last sentence of it/ "There [in the lavatory of a pub], everything inside me [Finbarr] came up in a tidal surge of vomit."

Buy why does Finbarr need to vomit at the end of the story? Because the story is about the hard life and vomiting is trendy in that kind of life.

Hard the life is when the two brothers aged 5 and 11 lose their mother to some sickness. Hard it is to be adopted in a way by some distant uncle, Mr. Collopy. He is a decent man but he shows no love to anyone: he has only a rather cold and distant interest in others and life that cannot be specified. He is living on a decent income but no one knows what it is, except the fact that it is investment.

Hard life is when the two brothers are separated by being sent to two different schools managed by some Catholic priests and Jesuits known as the Christian Brothers, though what they learn or teach according to which side we stand on, does not seem very relevant in this life since they never speak of it.

Hard is this life when Finbarr's elder brother, Manus, becomes an adventurous entrepreneur who starts his successful life of wrapping up people in some opaque unconsciousness, in a bag of flour or potatoes as for that, to get their money with tight-rope walking and by selling a distant learning course on tight-rope walking for one, which ends in an accidental quasi-death, and many other subjects later.

Hard is this life when Finbarr's elder brother runs away to London, to escape an investigation and to create the London University Academy, a mail order business in distant learning in any subject that may count on its side a few fools and clients.

Hard is the life when Finbarr's elder brother is very successful in his shady business while Finbarr is still dependent and does not want to do anything in particular, except lie in bed, drink stout, smoke butts and dream of the pleasure some effort might bring. But he seems to be naturally born tired. So even such pleasures are too tiring, hence tiresome.

Hard is this life when the daughter of Mr. Collopy, Annie, has spent her whole life looking after her sick and dying stepmother, then her sick and dying father and then her cousins, with no words of thanks or whatever from anyone of them, except a lifelong pension after Mr. Collopy's death.

Life is hard when Manus, the elder brother, sends a charlatan's drug to cure Mr. Collopy's rheumatism, and Mr. Collopy ends up swelling like a balloon - though a lot heavier than one such air light item - and will accidentally die of that overweight.

Hard is life when they have the opportunity to be received by the Pope for a private talk and it ends up in shame and rejection, which will eventually cause Mr. Collopy's death and burial in Rome.

Hard is life when Finbarr gets £500 from Mr. Collopy's will, and most of the heritage goes into a fund that is building three rest houses for who knows who. But Manus suggests to his brother that he should marry his cousin Annie who is at least 20 years older than he is, just for the inheritance not to get squandered.

When Finbarr reaches that point he only can drink a ball or half-ball of malt whiskey and then go to the lavatory and vomit it all.

Yes life is hard after all when there is no moral objective in it.

In fact the book is entirely sarcastic and humorous, if not satirical because everything is so banal, ordinary, shallow, aimless that we can only think too much is too much. Each fact is trite but the accumulation of such meaningless and insignificant events sounds like a systematic denunciation of life without a target, an aim and a destination, if not an end in one word. Then due to that lack of an end to this life, it becomes endless finality-missing survival, in one word "the hard life". The targeted end of a life without an end is well worth vomiting all you can vomit in the lavatory of some pub. Imagine the gnats and flies you can find in such a garden of pleasure and you will have the whole picture in one sentence.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

If you are not familiar with Brian O'Nolan (Flann O'Brien), then please do become acquainted before venturing into the sarcastic, comic work which is The Hard Life. Upon a cold read, it may be difficult to realize that the social critiques here are meant to make you life, not cry or ponder. Afterall, a main character is named "Father Fahrt" by no accident.

However, please do give it credit for a more refined sense of humor. O'Brien lays into Irish Catholocism, early medicine, social organizing, self-serving public service and so on...

It's a great, fast read and very enjoyable...