The Master and Margarita (5 of 5) & Flann O'Brien
Gobdaws, umbrellas and the Gates of Hell
Dear classics reader,
In this week’s mouldy jug of Falernian wine you will find:
Some background on Flann O’Brien before we start reading The Third Policeman next week;
Birthday wishes to G. K. Chesterton;
A preview of coming attractions and other notices;
And for paid subscribers:
The week’s new classics – including a new two-volume edition of Hume’s essays;
And our final discussion of The Master and Margarita – with notes on Pashkov House, the Devichy Convent and the Gates of Hell.
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Flann O’Brien (1911-1966)
I’m very much looking forward to reading Flann O’Brien’s absurd, hilarious and nightmarish novel The Third Policeman with you. We’re going to read it over three weeks, starting next Friday 5th June. All the details are here.
Beforehand, here is a little about O’Brien’s life.
Flann O’Brien was the pen name of Brian O’Nolan, who was born in Strabane, County Tyrone, in 1911, the fifth of twelve children.
He moved to Dublin as a teenager and was a civil servant and an alcoholic for most of his life. He enjoyed pseudonyms and, as civil servants weren’t allowed to publish under their own identities, he had a wide variety of pen names.
At University College Dublin he was ‘Brother Barnabus’; in the Irish Times he was ‘Myles na Gopaleen’ and ‘An Broc’ (‘The Badger’); in the Nationalist and Leinster Times he was ‘George Knowall’; he wrote letters as ‘Lir O’Connor’; and his English-language novels were published under the pseudonym ‘Flann O’Brien’.
His first novel, At-Swim-Two-Birds, was published in 1939, on the recommendation of Graham Greene, who was working as a reader for Longman. At-Swim-Two-Birds was praised by Samuel Beckett and a near-blind James Joyce, who read it with a magnifying glass.
Joyce called him ‘a real writer, with the true comic spirit’. ‘I declare to God,’ said O’Nolan, ‘if I hear that name Joyce one more time I will surely froth at the gob.’
From 1940 until 1966, O’Nolan, writing as Myles na Gopaleen, produced a popular satirical column for the Irish Times called Cruiskeen Lawn or ‘Little Brimming Jug’, with comic anecdotes about Dublin life. He enjoyed attacking his own readers, addressing them once as ‘you smug, self-righteous swine . . . self-opinionated, sod-minded, suet-brained, ham-faced, mealy-mouthed, streptococcus-ridden gang of natural gobdaws!’
In 1948 he married Evelyn McDonnell, a typist in his civil service department.
He left Ireland just once in his life and died on April Fools’ Day, 1966.
I look forward to reading The Third Policeman with you, starting next Friday.
Happy Birthday G. K. Chesterton
In other news, G. K. Chesterton was born on this day in 1874.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was very tall and extremely portly. When asked, during the First World War, why he was not out at the front, he replied: ‘If you go round to the side, you will see that I am.’
He assisted the War Propaganda Bureau, alongside Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy and Ford Madox Ford. He trained as an artist and worked as a journalist, and produced prodigious quantities of novels, essays, biographies, poetry, plays, histories, religious books and detective stories.
Known as ‘the Prince of Paradox’, he wore a cape and a crumpled hat, carried a swordstick and smoked a cigar. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1922.
Father Brown: Selected Stories by G. K. Chesterton (1911-1935)
With his round, unassuming face, his pipe and umbrella, the bumbling priest Father Brown makes for an improbable detective. Yet his innocent air hides a piercing understanding of the criminal mind, and a boundless knowledge of human nature. This selection brings together some of the best of G. K. Chesterton’s beloved stories, in which we see the clerical sleuth foiling a jewel thief in London, solving a macabre mystery in a Scottish castle and unravelling dark deeds in a sleepy English suburb.
[UK] Penguin English Library | 304 pages
[UK / US] Penguin Classics | 864 pages | introduced by Michael Hurley | as The Complete Father Brown Stories
Coming Attractions and Other Notices
Future monthly read-alongs
For a sneak preview of our upcoming monthly read-alongs, take a peak here.
The Evesham Festival of Words
If you’re near Worcestershire on Friday 26 June, come to the Evesham Festival of Words! I will be speaking at 3.30pm about the history of the Penguin Classics, which marks its 80th anniversary this year. Here are all the details.
The Idler Festival
And then if you’re in London on Sunday 12 July, it would be lovely to see you at the glorious Idler Festival at Fenton House in Hampstead. I will be leading a guided walk of literary Hampstead at 12 noon on the Sunday. Here are the details.
The Idler No. 110
And speaking of the Idler magazine, I’m delighted to say I have an article in the current issue about the different translations of Homer’s Odyssey. I’ve even got a spot on the front cover, alongside John and Paul!
I’m in excellent company in this issue, alongside Mark Vernon, Alex Johnson, David Bramwell, ella berthoud, Rachel Kelly and many others.
You can get your copy from all good newsagents – or directly from the Idler here.
Annual book subscription
If you’re enjoying our read-alongs, why not treat yourself to the Hatchards Classic Book Club annual book subscription?
You (or a friend) can receive all the books we read each month here on Read the Classics, beautifully gift-wrapped and delivered to your door, anywhere in the world, as well as a year’s complimentary subscription to Read the Classics, so you can choose to read along with us, if you wish.
To find out more, follow this link or email Hatchards directly: subscriptions@hatchards.co.uk
