No Laughing Matter [Facsimile] [Hardcover]

Anthony Cronin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2003

Flann O'Brien's writing career was launched in 1939 with his brilliant first novel AT SWIM TWO BIRDS--a cult classic praised by James Joyce--quickly followed by other influential novels. But O'Brien lived a dark and tragic life, his writing obscured by various pseudonyms. Here Anthony Cronin, a member of O'Brien's intimate circle, offers a remarkable and fascinating portrait of the writer.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This absorbing biography of Brian O'Nolan (1911-1966), by a poet-friend, though fuller than any other, is nevertheless unsatisfying because it doesn't explain the mystery of this Irishman's self-destruction. In his 20s, in addition to working full time as a civil servant (and supporting his mother and 11 siblings), O'Nolan, as Flann O'Brien, wrote two remarkable novels-- At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman --and, as Myles na gCopaleenstet , enjoyed popularity as a newspaper columnist. But the rest of his life was dreary and disappointing. For him, literature was an in-joke; he had no intellectual curiosity and often complained of boredom. Fired from his government job, he tried to cadge work and came up with wild schemes for advertisements and TV series. Alcohol dominated his life; he spent more time in pubs and in bed than in meaningful activity. "One of the funniest writers to use the English language in this century," he became, and remains, a cult figure. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Novelist Flann O'Brien, newspaper columnist Myles na Gopaleen, civil servant Brian Nolan, and Brian O'Nolan are all one in the same brilliant writer and satirist, often compared to James Joyce. From early on, O'Brien held a bemused view of the world. He discovered his writing voice at University College in Dublin, where he often wrote under the pseudonym Brother Barnabas. Entering the civil service, writing his sophisticated column and novels, drinking heavily to disguise his shyness, O'Brien became a figure of intellectual note in Dublin. He was a devotee of the Irish language, a nationalist of sorts. He, despite his civil servant appearance, wore the wider-brimmed hat of the literary man who disdained pretension and falseness with scathing humor, variously found in his novels, The Hard Life, The Poor Mouth, and The Dalkey Archive. Cronin (The Last Modernist: A Life of Samuel Beckett, LJ 6/1/97), a friend of O'Brien's, has found in his treatment of O'Brien the essence of this troubled, accomplished, and most decidedly Irish writer.?Robert Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., Ind.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: New Island Books; Facsimile edition edition (September 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904301371
• ISBN-13: 978-1904301370
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,443,006 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful, entertaining, and occasionally frustrating, December 12, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien (Hardcover)

Cronin is an affectionate biographer but thankfully not a hagiographer. His personal acquaintance with Brian O'Nolan gives him insight into the various personal and artistic personae that O'Nolan adopted: Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen, etc. Cronin spends too much energy speculating as to why O'Brien never managed to fulfil the artistic potential of his first two novels. It is, perhaps, unfair to fault Cronin, as this failure frustrates anyone who has read O'Brien's early work. However, Cronin's tone occasionally becomes pious and judgemental of O'Nolan. One wishes this tone would have extended to other aspects of O'Nolan's life (specifically the personal); Cronin evokes and explains the mind set of Dublin in the early to mid twentieth century, but he seems wary of really examining it. In all fairness, that might have been another book altogether. In sum, the book is readable, often as funny as O'Brien himself (and occasionally just as sad), and useful for the student of Flann O'Brien. It fills

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for Flann O'Brien fans, August 25, 2000

By 

johnny2bad (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien (Hardcover)

This book is the definitive biography, whatever quibbles one may have with the author's judgments, aesthetic or otherwise, about O'Nolan's life or art. Think instead about what you get with this book: an author who knew the subject personally, in-depth research into O'Nolan's origins and childhood, an intimate knowledge of the Irish literary scene in the interwar and postwar years, and the ability to show how these shaped the subject intellectually and psychologically. I disagree with a few of Cronin's assessments: I think The Dalkey Archive was the pinnacle of O'Nolan's novelistic achievements. While I agree he should have written more novels, I also feel that his time writing newspaper columns was well spent; there's more wit in most of those columns than in many novels by lesser writers. This book satisfies one of the most important criteria of a biography, that it be a good read in and of itself: Cronin is an excellent writer.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful view of Dublin literary and middle classlife, January 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien (Hardcover)

This is a beautifully written book about a brillant frustrated man, who was a great novelist, newspaper columnist and a competent bureaucrat at the same time. Interesting to an American for that insider's look at those segments of Irish life, it is also valueable to an Irish American Catholic for it is explanation of how O'Brien's convinced Catholicism limited his intellectual curiosity.