The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story About the Hard Life (1941)

This is a strange little book. Of course, it is by Flann O’Brien, so why should anything but strange be expected. It is the story of the life of Bonaparte O’Coonassa, born to great poverty in Ireland. Bonaparte is not really anyone we like. He just exists in his poverty. We follow Bonaparte as he lives his life, finding good things, finding bad things, just finding things, because life just happens to him.

Since I read this in English, separated by 70 years, I know I missed much of what this book says and the inherent humor. Yet, it is still just strange enough and funny enough to enthrall. And so I enjoyed it immensely. There are strange footnotes and strange drawings, and the entire thing parodies styles of writing with I am familiar and others not so much so.

But it is fun. And it is in the vein one expects from O’Brien. I don’t know that I would use this book to introduce the reader to O’Brien, but then, which of his books would be a good “introduction”? Better, as with this book, to just jump in and hope you can swim. ( )

Coruscating satire on the Gaeltacht and the Gaelic revival by a master of the genre. Why is he still relatively unknown in America? ( )