The Dalkey Archive (Irish Literature Series)

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Summary: O'Brien's hallucinatory vision of the Midwest
Review: Flann O'Brien is well known among eireophiles and connoisseurs of high modernism alike for his hilarious literary forays, as he tilts at the absolute limits of language like a sodden Quixote. But here in his latter days O'Brien has created a quieter work, a more reflective and a more--dare I??--naturalistic work. O'Brien has created an alter-ego, a man named "Jack O'Brien" who has taken up residence "in the befoul'd shebeens of darkest Shy-cago." A hilarious literateur manque with delusions of grandeur, O'Brien moves about in his soiled clothes covered with a "thin yellow film of calcified tobacco, 'a parsonal amber it is, in which I tend to be trapped like a drunken fly of prehistory.'" His dream is to create a literary publishing house of the finest order, the "Dalkey Archive" of the title. He voyages, Candide-like, to central Illinois, where he founds an institute of higher learning, "The Center for Cerebral Discomfort." He unearths a hermitlike troll named S'more to be his Senior Editor, knowing full well that the man refuses to meet with or communicate with his authors, leaving them "beshrouded-like, in clouds of everlasting mystery." Soon, he has become a minor hero of the Weekender Section of the local newspaper, the Normalcy Brigadier, and serves as a well-loved raconteur at the local Marimbar, a Latin-themed saloon near the Center. A real hoot, this minor work.

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Summary: One of the Most Peculiarly Funny Books Ever Written
Review: I first read "The Dalkey Archive" twenty years ago, while a graduate student at Trinity College in Dublin. It struck me then, as it strikes me now upon re-reading it, as one of the most peculiarly funny books I've ever read. It combines elements of original lunacy and weird science with the resonating touchstones of a uniquely Irish comic sensibility. The story is driven by the madcap schemes of a character named De Selby, who describes himself as "a theologist and a physicist, sciences which embrace many others such as eschatology and astrognosy." De Selby invents a substance which removes all oxygen from the atmosphere (a substance he calls "DMP", the acronym for the Dublin Metropolitan Police) and then discovers that a deoxygenated atmosphere cancels the serial nature of time. The plot moves on from there, with Mick Shaughnessy, a "lowly civil servant", engaging the local constable to help him save the world from De Selby's scheme to deoxygentate the world's atmosphere. In the course of things, "The Dalkey Archive" contains two of the funniest chapters ever written (Chapters 4 and 9): one in which De Selby, Mick Shaughnessy and a drinking companion named Hackett, clad in aqualungs, talk to Saint Augustine (his "Dublin accent was unmistakable") about arcane theological doctrines and the Church Fathers in an underwater cave; the other in which Sergeant Fottrell, the constable, explains to Mick his "Mollycule Theory", the theory that people's personalities become mixed up with those of bicycles through the pounding of man and machine while pedaling down bumpy Irish country roads ("a process of prolonged carnal intercussion"). Along the way, Mick discovers that James Joyce is alive, well and bartending in the small coastal town of Skerries. Need I say more? "The Dalkey Archive" is a work of startling wit and originality, one of my comic favorites!

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Summary: The Logic of Laughter
Review: I love Flann O'Brien in both his languages and all his names. No book has ever made me laugh as loud or as long as his An Beal Bocht/The Poor Mouth, but along with the laughter, O'Brien was nudging me to reconsider a few old pieties and truisms.

So too with The Dalkey Archive. Big events overtake a little place and little (though not in their own views!) people must take action. Religion and science collide head-on and the very future of the world-as-we-know-it-in-Dalkey is threatened.

Perhaps a younger person can't appreciate the edge on O'Brien's themes: religion, science, world-threatening geniuses. Perhaps the end of the cold war, the burgeoning of technology and the seeming irrelevance of the Church make the questions raised in Dalkey outdated. What remains, however, is brilliant comedy of the verbal sort, the sort which no one since Perelman and the Marx Brothers has done as well in the USA.

O'Brien is at his best when exploring the ligatures between the brain and the tongue. His dialogues capture perfectly the kind of conversation the Irish are famed for, but O'Brien never fails to make us notice just how many of the words are gratuitous, redundant, fatuous, for all their charm. Moreover, lurking in the verbal pyrotechnics are all manner of fallacy and foolishness: the very thing that is bound to happen when ordinary people are put upon to construct reality out of our few scraps of real information, on our feet, and with a few drinks taken. The "Truth" about religion, science, literature, Ireland, people---as the denizens of Dalkey construct it for themselves--gives us cause for healing laughter as it gently dismantles a few false gods and just as gently exposes the foibles of men and Irishmen.

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Summary: james byrne
Review: james joyce, the james joyce, being mistaken as someone who wants the job of mending jesuits underwear. priceless. very funny book.

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Summary: weird but necessary
Review: O'Brien is not a household name but he is a wag of the calibre of Oscar Wilde or even Joyce when Joyce wasn't taking himself too seriously. This is a classic but nearly unknown work. It does require some interest in traditional literary issues such as the history of church metaphysics, but only to give the basis of a good joke. Track this work down and read it, for the betterment of your wit and understanding.

Rating:
Summary: weird but necessary
Review: O'Brien is not a household name but he is a wag of the calibre of Oscar Wilde or even Joyce when Joyce wasn't taking himself too seriously. This is a classic but nearly unknown work. It does require some interest in traditional literary issues such as the history of church metaphysics, but only to give the basis of a good joke. Track this work down and read it, for the betterment of your wit and understanding.

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Summary: One of my all-time favorites
Review: This is a charming, wonderful book, one of my all-time favorites. It's as quirky and funny as the rest of O'Brien's work; the underwater conversation that the two main characters have with St. Augustine, for example, is one of the few pieces of writing that has actually made me laugh out loud. One of the best things about this book is the simplicity and vividness with which O'Brien portrays the Irish town (and its environs) where the story takes place -- the landscape is as much a "character" in this novel as the people. Unassuming, quiet and memorable -- it will make you fall in love with O'Brien's work.

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Summary: My favourite Flann O'Brien book
Review: This is an excellent book by my favourite Irish author. It has several plots all of which are very funny, although I think my personal favourite is the love triangle between Mary, Mick, and Hackett. It was also written after James Joyce had died so it is very interesting (and amusing) how he is miscast in this book. He is alive and in hiding for one thing. Joyce was actually an early champion of Flann's work so they might have been friends.