Best of Myles

by Flann O'Brien

  5. There will be no ‘streets’.

  6. Valuable sub-soils will be made available for agriculture.

  In fairness, however, I must set down a few of the drawbacks that must be considered:

  1. No back-door.

  2. Danger of flooding.

  3. Danger of astronomy becoming an obsession with all householders.

  4. Danger to inebriates in manipulating a horizontal hall-door.

  And add to those, if you want to be funny, the danger of people dropping in on you at all hours.

  If you reflect, however, you will see that most of the disadvantages of the underground house are bound up with the householder’s persistence in the old habit of going ‘out’—that is, up, and out along the crust of the earth. His pretexts for this are rarely very sound and if the time is about nine o’clock at night, they are indefensible. Consider a clerk living in a small basement flat on the outskirts of London. He gets up so early that he does so in darkness nearly all the year round. He rushes up and out and after a few seconds on the surface, he has disappeared into the bowels of the earth to get a train to town. His office, even if not a basement, will be dark and sepulchral. He goes home by tube and is soon asleep in his underground bed. He has never really been up or out at all, and if private subterranean accommodation roads could be built from underground houses to tubes and underground traffic arteries of one kind and another, an entire city could be permanently submerged, with no worse effects than an owl-eyed and untanned citizenry.

  A lot of nonsense is talked about the sun. Get plenty of fresh air and sunlight, a doctor will tell you. Observe the effect of fresh air and sunlight on flowers. Almost under your eyes they are forced to precocious bloom, now they are already withered and crumbling to dust. The sun blasts the tender slow cycle of growth, forces the human plant as it will rhubarb under glass. The sun kills because its direct energy, undiluted and untransformed cannot indefinitely be sustained by any form of life. The corrosive light that comes from radium abounds also in sunlight. Avoid the sun, reader. Better the genial battery that has ever digested and stored the sunlight—the earth. Go into the earth, burrow into your progenitrix, live among your travelled and returned predecessors, lie on top of your descendants.

  We who are Irish come from the earth of Ireland and to it we will one day return. I am not so sure that we have not taken a grave risk by coming up at all. (And think of the convenience of getting rid forever of this dreary mess known as ‘the weather’.)

  YOU MUST KEEP this strictly under your hat but I received an invitation to be in attendance at 86 St Stephen’s Green last Thursday evening to hear a ‘paper’ on … guess?…‘The Function and Scope of Criticism’. It interests me as a scientist that there is to be found today in this humble island a young man who is anxious to explain this matter to me and it will be a regret to me, always, that a malignant destiny decreed that on that evening I should be elsewhere. I feel rather tired but surely if one explains concisely the function of criticism, one has also defined its scope; if it be the function of the Slieve Gullion to draw passengers train to Belfast, is it necessary to add that this engine should not sell race-cards in Dublin on Baldoyle days?

  Again, I must ask you to regard what I say as private and confidential. The document I have received says No Press References and one must not (if only out of deference to the distinguished Knight who is among the signatories) outrage this most understandable desire for secrecy. You see, these bodies are about something far more hush-hush than jet-propulsion. They are (this is quite incredible but I swear it so help me) they are interested in … Art! (!!!!!!)

  Well well. Wasn’t it a shame, Paud, that they kept it all from you until now, that they didn’t tell you about it, that you have to fly into back rooms in your hundreds to have it explained to you! Poor poor Paud.

  These people, disdaining extraordinary water, call themselves ‘Common Ground’. With gigantic presumption they begin by calling me ‘Dear Sir’ and then continue as follows:

  ‘As you are probably already aware, some few years ago a group of persons interested in literature decided to meet about once a month to hear a paper read by one of their numbers. A discussion followed each paper and much benefit and enjoyment was derived by those present.’

  ‘As you are probably already aware’ is surely effrontery of an unusual order. As well say, ‘as you are probably already aware, my sister had a pimple on her nose four months ago’. Why should it be assumed that a schoolgirl’s pimple is a matter necessarily within the public’s knowledge? Why should anybody know about the rebel back-room conclaves of ‘a group of persons interested in literature’—least of all My Most Equitable Gaelic Palatinity? (????) And if they are so interested in literature, why don’t they learn to be literate? How could one be aware of something without being already aware of it? Could this ‘group’ be otherwise than a group ‘of persons’? Could a group of black-faced mountain sheep be interested in literature? Could … could a group of asses be interested in literature? Could the benefit and enjoyment (sic) that was derived (very eclectic word ‘derived’ in that context) be derived by those not present? ‘Literature’ how are you!

  ‘Arising out of the experience of those concerned with ‘Common Ground’ in its early stage, it was thought advisable recently to widen its scope. Henceforth ‘Common Ground’ will be designed primarily to be of help to Catholics interested in literature, art, learning, and in social and political theory …’

  Don’t go away—keep reading. The English alone is marvellous. (I feel awful.)

  ‘A series of lectures have been planned for the coming twelve months. Widely different topics have been tentatively chosen for treatment. (M. & B?) The Function and Scope of Criticism; Political Thought in Ireland—Past and Future; The Irish Social Order; The Scope and Content of Irish Culture. It was thought advisable to have three papers at successive meetings from different lecturers on each of these subjects, each dealing with a particular aspect of the matter. The views put forward by the lecturers, together with the opinions expressed by the subsequent speakers, should prove stimulating and beneficial to all concerned.’

  Wouldn’t it be terrible if a (subsequent) speaker put forward views instead of expressing opinions? ‘To all concerned’ is superb.

  I cannot recall in recent months a more virulent eruption of paddyism.

  THERE IS a funny idea abroad (by which I mean, of course, in Ireland) that if you scream loudly enough against ‘censorship’ you are therefore a litherary man and an ‘intellectual’. You are ‘advanced’ and ‘read books’. It is a handier resort than the beard act, though the two together are formidable. Against a dull day I cut (out) some weeks ago the following bit from our awful Litherary Page—you know the poem made of rhubarb in the middle and the surround of bubonic marzipan:

  ‘… The censorship mind is not loosening its grip on Ireland. At the bottom of it is a belief that man is unable to choose and to criticise for himself—that he must be guarded, like an infant in the nursery, in case he should fall into the fire. It might be argued that this is something very like a negation of freewill; it is certainly a negation of the basic principle of democracy—the principle that man is an adult, who has the right to make up his own mind. We concede every grown man and woman the right to choose their own rulers—can we not concede them the right to choose their books and their films?’

  I am not acquainted with the Daddy Christmas who wrote the foregoing matter but it interests me as a scientist. I like the idea of the mind with a bottom in which reclines the belief that Mahon is unable etc. Also the bit lower down where we concede every grown man and woman the right to choose ‘their’ (sic, ho-ho!) own rulers. A terrible drop for school-going chislers, who have to buy theirs. And Democracy? I never touch it but if it means a Saturday paper full of articles by persons who ‘write’ about ‘the doctrine of free-will’, ‘the basic principle of democracy’ and ‘belief’, I think it is time we all changed over to the Ni
etzsche Nietzsche Shinbum.

  Though I am a weary, lovable old person, I can see that this young gentleman-writer wishes to imply that … all is not well here in Ireland, that something closely resembling a grim show is getting a continuous performance, that too many … negeishas are going round negating the doct. of f-w., and (b) the basic prin. of democ. quote amid laughter the principle that man is an adult unquote. I … I … I know nothing of this democracy (—though as an Irishman I can discourse learnedly on the only systems we have tried here, Tanistry and Black-and-Tanistry—) but I am anxious to learn. It has been tried, presumably, and has been found satisfactory, or this precocious literary youngster would not thus praise it. Emmmm … where? Do please drop me a card. I mean if one admits that life here is not too smart, unlike what does that make us? And where—to change the conversation—is the evidence that man is unable to choose and criticise for himself, of all people? How has this paragon of animals shown that he must not be guarded like an infant? Is his faculty for falling into the fire not embarrassingly perennial? How has he benefited by his … adult status, his ‘right’ to make up his own mind, to ‘choose’—delicate euphemism!—his own rulers. Where is he at the present moment—or have I said the wrong thing?

  As for this poor ‘adult’ boob choosing his own films …! Even the poor cinema owners are not conceded that right.

  ONE DOES NOT like opening old sewers but a rather interesting issue arose in connexion with Mr Patrick Kavanagh’s review of the Exhibition of Modern Art. He found the presentation ‘middle-class’, favoured one or two works and contrasted the cautious awe that ‘difficult’ pictures evoke in Dublin as compared with the treatment—come, what is the word?—the treatment … meted out to ‘writers’.

  As regards writers, let it be said at once that there is no major personality in Irish letters today. In the last century, Joyce and Yeats were the only two who were men of genius. For the rest, we have had an infestation of literary vermin, an eruption of literary scabies for which all the patience of scientists notwithstanding, no cure has yet been found. Call it, if you will, ‘type-phoid’. We all know them, they are very serious ‘young’ men, their ‘work’ is important. But there let severe judgment end. It is very doubtful if they are as bad as our ‘painters’ (one means the 95 per cent awfully bad ones) and the writers do not have an annual orgy comparable with the Academy Exhibition. No no no! (Wards off protests with yellow wax-like hands.) Earnestness, honesty, good purpose—these are not enough. You must learn to draw. If, after many a summer, you find you cannot draw, then … then … be a writer. And there is not a terrible lot wrong with earning one’s living behind the counter of a drapery shop. ‘Art’ is so terribly often no more than vocational malfunction.

  Miss Norah McGuinness, who is in nowise to be classed with the duds, quotes Mr Kavanagh as saying ‘I know nothing about painting but I do know that with the exception of four pictures the rest of the exhibits should be at the bottom of the Liffey.’ Now among artists Mr Kavanagh’s image should evoke interest and meditation rather than anger. For if this remark proves anything, it proves that Mr Kavanagh is a raging post-post-impressionist, far more impatient with out-moded ‘academic’ forms than Miss McGuinness. Take for instance that serene and charming picture ‘The Seine at Argenteuil’ by Sisley. How would that look at the bottom of the Liffey, the French blue slow water enlivened by our green own? Who will say that true art is not materially and majestically implicated in that flux of dissident modes and morphologies the impact of the real on the ‘interpreted’, the live Dublin pinkeen nosing for grub in the soil of the Gallic bank? It would be a difficult thing to achieve physically in a manner that would permit of adequate inspection but the idea is far less fantastic than those of the French surrealist brethren, who probably dislike Sisley far more than does Mr Kavanagh and who had frequently implored people who attend their exhibitions to bring hatchets and hammers so that they may demolish anything they dislike—even boxes of paints so that they may ‘improve’ exhibits that seem to stand in need of such treatment!

  The promoters of the present Exhibition talk with awe of the ‘fauves’—the wild beasts who shattered with pitiless talons whatever remained of the academic in impressionism, the boys who took nothing for granted, made their own rules and certainly took nobody’s word that any given picture was ‘good’. Did they know about art, any more than Mr Kavanagh? The rather embarrassing fact is that Mr Kavanagh is himself, according to any known method of artistic mensuration a ‘fauve’, and it seems extraordinary that he should be attacked for exhibiting this prepossessing attribute. Art, remember, does not vary intrinsically as between different media or techniques. Mr Kavanagh’s saeva indignatio seems to be what the promoters of the Exhibition are anxious to propagate. Why then write bitter letters to the paper about him? And why—above all—pretend that artistic appreciation and patronage is not middle class?

  LET US LOOK further into this ‘Loan Exhibition of Modern Continental Art’. A glance at somebody’s else’s catalogue—I will not immolate my third boy’s Allowance for such a purpose—made me note with relief that the paper shortage is over. Sixty pages, fifteen of them blank. And do you know, reader, the date of the exhibition? No, you’d never guess. This—

  ‘AUGUST MCMXLIV’

  ‘M’ for mile, ‘C’ for céad—go on, work it out for yourself. Do you mind the dainty, sherry-sodden coyness of it? Are you much of a man—or a wumman—for the Latin? Ever do the History of Rome by 54y at school? Sorry—I mean Livy. O, well I know the kind you were, no interest in the buicks at all but spending every available moment in the picture palaces, lapping up the cowboy stuff, Tom 1,009, his lariat, his long nose, his black hair and his white horse! And ‘The Perils of Pauline’! O tempora! (O Grace Moore!)

  But this exhibition. It is commonplace enough in all sooth (I assume all present are educated) but it brought into my own mind an old theme that I haven’t seen around the place for years. We are not all agreed on either the nature or function of art—how could we, it is years since I lectured on the subject. But a comprehensive and consecutive inspection of the work of the modern French masters—where you get imagination, great technical resource and certain intuitive … occurrences—impresses one again and again with the inadequacy and limitation of painting as a medium of adult expression. Primitive painting, passing from the merely explanatory to the decorative, could be said to have been a trade. Certain branches of present-day Dublin painting might be described as an episcopalian diversion. (But forget that.) My point is that succeeding generations of painters, becoming more and more neurotic, more obsessed with their ‘messages’ and with the self-evident task of ‘interpreting’ decadence and decay, sought to charge their mundane visual media with psychic … (waves white hand in air)…with … infra-human implications … even with horror, distortion, ugliness. There is, of course, a great difficulty here. (Frowns, glances at watch, compares watch with large clock at end of hall.) A sensual picture can appeal immediately to the heart, for here there is an instantaneous emotional contagion. A picture charged with what one may call … intellectual evocatives, however, is always a great risk—if only by reason of the diversity of human receptivity. The result is that serious painters become more and more desperate or keep experimenting laboriously like a woman trying on new hats. Thus Rouault, in the picture refused by the foreign Dublin Corporation, rejects the reverence and formalism that are traditional in treating sacred themes and (while our back is turned, so to speak) tries to pulverise our minds into acceptance of his view by a terrible paroxysm of brutality. Whether he succeeds depends on the customer’s taste, education and upbringing. Thus modern art tends to surround itself with ‘difficulties’. You must know about it, be told about it, go to lectures in freezing halls. To a large extent, this is also true of music—although in music the artist cannot escape from the discipline of what is equivalent to line in the plastic job. (Puts on chilblain mittens, class shuffles uncomfortably.) But the main
thing to bear in mind is the unimportance of all art. It is very much a minority activity. Mr Patrick Kavanagh is stated to have declared, while visiting the Exhibition with a view to criticising it in print, that he ‘knew nothing about art’. This evoked reprimands. I fear I must deal with this whole matter at great length tomorrow. (Suddenly rings bell for morning period; class look at each other, mooch out shifty-eyed.)

  MY NOTES of last week have brought me some very boring letters about art and the like. (‘And the like’ is good.) Some people simply cannot get this thing straight. Look at it this way—you are (yourself) a great artist, that is to say you arrived in Paris before the last war and lived in Zürich and Lausanne for its duration, Later, you did some work for Diaghilev; and the dealers (those cagey card-players) in London and New York became your agents. After a while Berlin and Munich lost interest in you. But you no longer starved. Christmas 1939 you were in Lisbon: now you are in New York, the great rebel, the great outcast, the enemy of society. Only the rich understand you, sympathise with you, are terribly eager that you should postpone that suicide … at least until you have finished this magistral composition ‘Homunculus Sapienticulissimus’, the finest thing you have ever done. You are very rich, very tired; with you painting is not simply a talent—it’s a disease. Eighteen hours a day—always to create and always that morbid horror of … copying yourself. Sometimes critics do not understand, but no matter—the dealers always do. You have said that your work is not experiment, you are not a laboratory worker.

  ‘I do not seek,’ you say, ‘—I find.’ That is all. ‘What I find is not always what is beautiful. But what is beauty? If you make something that is … new, then must it be ugly? Look at Stephenson’s “Rocket”, the Wright Brothers’ first plane, or that wonderful film The Great Train Robbery! Yet once these things have been thought of and translated into reality—how easy then to improve them, to make people see how fine they are! Who now wishes to deny the qualities of grace, harmony and clarity to a Boeing, a Sikorski, a Curtiss-Wright?’