Best of Myles

by Flann O'Brien

  FLANN O’BRIEN

  (Myles na Gopaleen)

  Best of Myles

  A selection from ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’

  Edited with a Preface by Kevin O’Nolan

  COPYRIGHT

  Fourth Estate

  A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Published in Paladin Books 1990

  First published in Great Britain by MacGibbon & Kee Ltd 1968

  Reissued by Grafton Books 1987

  Copyright © Evelyn O’Nolan 1968

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  Source ISBN: 9780586089507

  Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780007398348

  Version: 2016-03-31

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  PREFACE

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  WAAMA, ETC.

  THE BROTHER

  THE PLAIN PEOPLE OF IRELAND

  RESEARCH BUREAU

  THE CRUISKEEN COURT OF VOLUNTARY JURISDICTION

  THE DISTRICT COURT

  SIR MYLES NA gCOPALEEN

  FOR STEAM MEN

  KEATS AND CHAPMAN

  THE MYLES NA gCOPALEEN CATECHISM OF CLICHE

  CRITICISM, ART, LETTERS

  IRISH AND RELATED MATTERS

  BORES

  MISCELLANEOUS

  KEEP READING

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  PREFACE

  THE ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’ column started in The Irish Times twenty-nine years ago, and continued until the author’s death in 1966. Indeed it was resumed after his death in the form of reprinted articles under the heading ‘The Best of Myles’. The column was at first wholly in Irish but shortly it came to be written in English on alternate days. This continued for several years after which it appeared mainly in English. The daily contribution was often quite long, and the topic of one day might be resumed on a subsequent day. This serial form was acknowledged in later years where an identical caption was often followed by I, II, III, and so forth.

  In the present selection articles are separated by asterisks. Where the topic was continued, the continuation follows the asterisks. Accordingly the asterisks denote the conclusion of an article or a lapse of time before resuming. Apart from single or continued articles the selection includes shorter extracts, also isolated by asterisks.

  It seemed worth while, for the convenience of readers, to attempt some classification. But it is not rigid. Many waifs and strays have been bundled into the Guard’s Van under ‘Miscellaneous’. Nor are the other compartments specially reserved. A Keats and Chapman anecdote may be found lurking elsewhere than in their allotted space, or the Plain People of Ireland may find themselves hopelessly embedded in some alien context. But this reflects the reality of the column, where innovation and surprise were no rare ingredients, where the reader was unceremoniously hauled within brackets (for greater privacy), or addressed not in English or Irish but in a strange-looking mixture, English through the phonology of the Irish alphabet. In later years some of the author’s adventures were related wholly in Latin. With regard to Keats and Chapman, the author once listed among his happiest moments the hypothetical occasion of being assured ‘that I will never meet Keats in the hereafter.’

  The selection covers about the first five years, mostly the period of the Second World War. The American critic Richard Watts, writing in the New York Herald Tribune (in the summer of 1943) summarised the scope of the column: ‘As “Myles na gCopaleen” he writes a daily column for the conservative and Anglo-Irish newspaper, The Irish Times … a column devoted to magnificently laborious literary puns, remarkable parodies of De Quincey and others, fanciful literary anecdotes, and erudite study of clichés, scornful dissection of the literal meaning of highflown literary phraseology and a general air of shameless irony and high spirits. No one can build up a pun more shamelessly. No one can analyse the exact meaning of a literary flight of fantasy more devastatingly. He is at his best when telling absurd anecdotes, which he usually attributes to Keats and Chapman.’

  Regular readers of The Irish Times may notice that the present selection does not represent the tone of the column throughout its whole history. In its more recent years the tone was often more sombre, more fiercely satirical, and many passages of savage denunciation deserve resurrection. Perhaps a further selection may give this saeva indignatio its place.

  1968

  KEVIN O NOLAN

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  IT HAS not been thought advisable to delete from the following pages the occasional references to the original appearance of these articles in a daily newspaper. The author, for example, sometimes indicated by arrows or a pointing finger his references to other contributions in the paper, either a leading article with which he disagreed or some contribution in the social column. He was for many years a committed newspaperman and it would distort the tone of this book if all indications that these articles were written against a deadline, or that his own column was part of the greater whole, were to be deleted.

  Waama, etc.

  I HAVE RECEIVED by post a number of papers inviting me to become a member of the Irish Writers, Actors, Artists, Musicians Association, and to pay part of my money to the people who run this company. I am also invited to attend a meeting in Jury’s Hotel on Sunday week. Foot I will not set inside that door; act, hand or part I will not have with that party.

  At one of the preliminary meetings of this organisation, I bought a few minor novelists at five bob a skull and persuaded them to propose me for the presidency. Then I rose myself and said that if it was the unanimous wish of the company, etc., quite unworthy, etc., signal honour, etc., serve to the best of my ability, etc., prior claims of other persons, etc., if humble talents of any service, etc., delighted to place knowledge of literary world at disposal of, etc., undoubted need for organisation, etc.

  To my astonishment, instead of accepting my offer with loud and sustained applause, the wretched intellectuals broke up into frightened groups and started whispering together in great agitation. From where I sat in my mood of Homeric detachment I could distinctly hear snatches of talk like ‘never sober’, ‘literary corner-boy’, ‘pay nobody’, ‘Stubbs every week’, ‘running round with a TD’s wife’, ‘skip with the Association’s assets’, ‘great man for going to Paris’, ‘sell his mother for sixpence’, ‘belly full of brandy and unfortunate children without a rag’, ‘summoned for putting in plate glass window in Santry’, ‘pity unfortunate wife’, ‘half the stuff cogged from other people’, ‘sneer at us behind our backs’, ‘use Association’s name’, ‘what would people think’, ‘only inviting attention of Guards’, ‘who asked him here’, ‘believe he was born in Manchester’, ‘probably fly-boy’, ‘cool calculated cheek’: and so on, I regret to say. Subsequently a man
with glasses got up and mumbled something about best thanks of all concerned, proposal somewhat premature, society not yet wholly formed, bring proposal forward at later date, certain that choice would be a popular one, with permission of company pass on to next business, disgraceful sweat rates paid by broadcasting station … I thought this was fair enough, but think of my feelings a few days afterwards on hearing that Mr Sean O Faoláin had been elevated to the same Presidency. One shrinks from gratuitous comparisons, but man for man, novels for novels, plays for plays, services to imperishable Irish nation for services to i. I.n., popularity as drawingroom raconteur for p. as d.r., which was the better choice? I leave the answer not only to my readers but also to a betrayed posterity who may yet decide that Dermot MacMurrough was not the worst.

  QUESTIONABLE AIMS

  In any event, I was completely opposed to some of this organisation’s aims. For instance, it is proposed to secure ‘improved rates for all literary work’. This simply means an even heavier deluge of unpardonable ‘poetry’, more articles entitled ‘Big John: A Sketch’, and a premium on mediocrity generally. It is also sought to have ‘concerted agreement on copyrights, contracts, etc.’ What sort of an agreement is a ‘concerted agreement’, or is there such a thing as a unconcerted, disconcerted, or misconcerted agreement? ‘Special rates for radio scripts.’ Why? They all bore even my thick wife. Reduce the rates and you’ll get less of them making a clack in your ear. ‘Free legal advice.’ This will disemploy several worthy solicitors, a fiery celtic breed that I admire. ‘Recovery of fees.’ Yes, but minus ten per cent. Get your money in your hand before you put pen to paper, that’s what I say.

  Also, having regard to the categories mentioned, membership seems to be open to every man, woman and child in Ireland. Even my wife could claim to be a ‘commentator’ (whatever they mean by that word) and everybody knows that all these organisations are really formed in order to give people a pretext for getting away from their families. So what’s the use?

  FURTHERMORE

  This is the land of Ireland and now that WAAMA is in existence and in active operation, it is time that a ‘split’ was organised and a rival body formed. Would any person who thinks that he or she has not had a fair deal from WAAMA please communicate with me at this office? We will form our own organisation, with better aims and heavier annual dinners. Pretty girls will be admitted free and nobody will be bored with guff about Sigrid Undset or James Joyce Cabell. How about it, lads? I am determined to be president of something before I die—of Ireland itself, if need be.

  MY SUGGESTION the other day that the lines to be spoken in a new play at the Abbey should be displayed on banners suspended from the balcony and read off by the players as they go along, has won me golden opinions from the acting clique in WAAMA. They say that they are frequently asked to perform in very bad plays, and that no torment is so terrible as that of being compelled to commit muck to memory. An authoritative spokesman in official circles also stated last night that there appeared to be ‘no objection’ to my plan. That, of course, pleases me. Had his reaction been otherwise, I should have been compelled to ‘view’ his pronouncement ‘with concern’.

  Yes, the plan is a good one. There would be no necessity to tell the actors beforehand what play they are appearing in. They just come out on the stage, peer into the auditorium, and then come out with some dreadful remark about ‘Old John’, or ‘Brigid, his wife’.

  My plan has another great advantage in these nights of rushing for last ’buses. Supposing it is a case of missing the end of the play or missing your ’bus. Being possessed of reason, you are damned if you’ll miss your ’bus. But neither is it necessary to go home wondering what happened. You simply turn round and peer up at the balcony. Admittedly, it would look queer near the end of the play to have half the audience sitting with their backs to the stage and spelling out in loud whispers what the actors are going to say when they get a chance. Anything, however, is better than walking home in the rain. In an extreme case the entire audience might agree to take the rest of the play ‘as read’, and clear out en masse in the middle of the last act, thus releasing the tired actors and given them a chance of getting a lift home also. For the actors are human, too. Each had a mother.

  BUCHHANDLUNG

  A VISIT that I paid to the house of a newly-married friend the other day set me thinking. My friend is a man of great wealth and vulgarity. When he had set about buying bedsteads, tables, chairs and what-not, it occurred to him to buy also a library. Whether he can read or not, I do not know, but some savage faculty for observation told him that most respectable and estimable people usually had a lot of books in their houses. So he bought several book-cases and paid some rascally middleman to stuff them with all manner of new books, some of them very costly volumes on the subject of French landscape painting.

  I noticed on my visit that not one of them had ever been opened or touched, and remarked the fact.

  ‘When I get settled down properly,’ said the fool, ‘I’ll have to catch up on my reading.’

  This is what set me thinking. Why should a wealthy person like this be put to the trouble of pretending to read at all? Why not a professional book-handler to go in and suitably maul his library for so-much per shelf? Such a person, if properly qualified, could make a fortune.

  DOG EARS FOUR-A-PENNY

  Let me explain exactly what I mean. The wares in a bookshop look completely unread. On the other hand, a school-boy’s Latin dictionary looks read to the point of tatters. You know that the dictionary has been opened and scanned perhaps a million times, and if you did not know that there was such a thing as a box on the ear, you would conclude that the boy is crazy about Latin and cannot bear to be away from his dictionary. Similarly with our non-brow who wants his friends to infer from a glancing around his house that he is a high-brow. He buys an enormous book on the Russian ballet, written possibly in the language of that distant but beautiful land. Our problem is to alter the book in a reasonably short time so that anybody looking at it will conclude that its owner has practically lived, supped and slept with it for many months. You can, if you like, talk about designing a machine driven by a small but efficient petrol motor that would ‘read’ any book in five minutes, the equivalent of five years or ten years’ ‘reading’ being obtained by merely turning a knob. This, however, is the cheap soulless approach of the times we live in. No machine can do the same work as the soft human fingers. The trained and experienced book-handler is the only real solution of this contemporary social problem. What does he do? How does he work? What would he charge? How many types of handling would there be?

  These questions and many more I will answer the day after tomorrow.

  THE WORLD OF BOOKS

  YES, this question of book-handling. The other day I had a word to say about the necessity for the professional book-handler, a person who will maul the books of illiterate, but wealthy, upstarts so that the books will look as if they have been read and re-read by their owners. How many uses of mauling would there be? Without giving the matter much thought, I should say four. Supposing an experienced handler is asked to quote for the handling of one shelf of books four feet in length. He would quote thus under four heads:—

  ‘Popular Handling—Each volume to be well and truly handled, four leaves in each to be dog-eared, and a tram ticket, cloak-room docket or other comparable article inserted in each as a forgotten book-mark. Say, £1 7s 6d. Five per cent discount for civil servants.’

  ‘Premier Handling—Each volume to be thoroughly handled, eight leaves in each to be dog-eared, a suitable passage in not less than 25 volumes to be underlined in red pencil, and a leaflet in French on the works of Victor Hugo to be inserted as a forgotten book-mark in each. Say, £2 17s 6d. Five per cent discount for literary university students, civil servants and lady social workers.’

  A RATE TO SUIT ALL PURSES

  The great thing about this graduated scale is that no person need appear ignorant or unlettere
d merely because he or she is poor. Not every vulgar person, remember, is wealthy, although I could name …

  But no matter. Let us get on to the more expensive grades of handling. The next is well worth the extra money.

  ‘De Luxe Handling—Each volume to be mauled savagely, the spines of the smaller volumes to be damaged in a manner that will give the impression that they have been carried around in pockets, a passage in every volume to be underlined in red pencil with an exclamation or interrogation mark inserted in the margin opposite, an old Gate Theatre programme to be inserted in each volume as a forgotten book-mark (3 per cent discount if old Abbey programmes are accepted), not less than 30 volumes to be treated with old coffee, tea, porter or whiskey stains, and not less than five volumes to be inscribed with forged signatures of the authors. Five per cent discount for bank managers, county surveyors and the heads of business houses employing not less than 35 hands. Dog-ears extra and inserted according to instructions, twopence per half dozen per volume. Quotations for alternative old Paris theatre programmes on demand. This service available for a limited time only, nett, £7 18s 3d.’

  ORDER YOUR COPY NOW

  The fourth class is the Handling Superb, although it is not called that—Le Traitement Superbe being the more usual title. It is so superb that I have no space for it today. It will appear here on Monday next, and, in honour of the occasion, the Irish Times on that day will be printed on hand-scutched antique interwoven demidevilled superfine Dutch paper, each copy to be signed by myself and to be accompanied by an exquisite picture in tri-colour lithograph of the Old House in College Green. The least you can do is to order your copy in advance.