Brian O'Nolan - the Irish literary genius better known by his aliases Brother Barnabas (under which he began his writing career doing funny pieces for student magazines at University College, Dublin), Myles na gCopaleen (under which he wrote the wonderful Cruiskeen Lawn column in the Irish times for more than 25 years across the middle of the 20th century), and Flann O'Brien, under which he published a number of sui generis comic novels - was born 100 years ago today.
Brian O'Nolan was the very first of my 'Unsuitable Role Models' here on The Barstool (it was a toss-up for that honour between O'Nolan, Tom Waits, and Jeffrey Bernard). He's been a great favourite of mine for over 25 years. I regret that I did not discover him sooner; although I suspect that I would not have 'got' him when still a boy. I had in fact read a short anthology of pieces about his character 'The Brother' when I was barely 10 years old, but had subsequently all but forgotten him again, and didn't seek out or fortuitously unearth anything else of his until around ten years later, when I was at university. Although I recall a few moments of snorting-liquids-out-of-the-nose hilarity in my first encounter with those stories of 'The Brother', I suspect the Dublin colour quite passed me by at such a tender age, and I became devoted instead to the more immediately accessible rib-tickling of O'Brien's near-contemporary J.B. Morton ('Beachcomber', of the long-running By The Way humorous column in the UK's Daily Express). When I chanced to pick up a Best of Myles collection in Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, circa 1985, I think I can fairly describe that as a life-changing moment for me. And when I first read The Third Policeman four or five years later - the best of his novels, I think, and one I have returned to re-read several times since - I realised that he was not just side-splittingly funny and dauntingly clever but one of the best, one of the very best writers I have ever read.
I have just learned that there was a centenary conference - 100 Myles - to celebrate his life and work a little while ago, back in July. I am very sorry to have missed it - it was held in Vienna! There's another, Flann 100, rather more appropriately hosted by Trinity College, Dublin, at the end of next week. That one, I suppose, I could just about make. I am mighty tempted, mighty tempted.
There have been tributes a-plenty already - from Mark O'Connell in The New Yorker last month, from Declan Kiberd on the Totally Dublin blog, and from Kevin Myers (the best written and most thorough appraisal I've yet found, though unduly sour in some respects, and harsh in its final verdict) in the Irish Independent at the end of last week. I daresay there will be others today, and over the coming weekend. I will update with any more worthwhile links I find.
I am gratified to learn that the great man has just been honoured by the inclusion of his visage on a new stamp from the Irish Post Office, while the Irish Times seems to be campaigning, not wholly tongue-in-cheek, for a statue of him to be erected (the Irish artist David O'Kane has produced the rather striking concept below, where discreet floodlighting projects a giant silhouette of the statue on to a wall displaying the text of one of O'Nolan's Cruiskeen Lawn pieces).
O'Nolan's legacy of cracked brilliance continues to inspire as well as entertain: a few years ago, I saw a superb musical comedy paying tribute to his work at the Edinburgh Fringe, Improbable Frequency (written for and first performed by Dublin's Rough Magic theatre company); more recently, the improbably named Ergo Phizmiz has created a multimedia work he calls a 'neuropera' based on The Third Policeman; and I just turned up an Irish humour blog (source of the fine photograph at the head of this post) which - though apparently rather short-lived - sought to keep the O'Nolan spirit alive with some splendid new offerings in his 'Keats & Chapman' genre of elaborately contrived puns.
There will be many people around the world enjoying a laugh over one of O'Brien's books today, and raising a glass in his memory on this Myles Day. (A pity I can't join them because I'm still on the wagon! Darn!)
[In my years of Myles idolatry on my two blogs, I have offered up numerous posts on him, including a celebration of the opening of his The Third Policeman as one of my very favourite first paragraphs in any novel, an attempt of my own at a 'Keats & Chapman' tale, and an account of how I have become convinced of the truth of his 'atomic theory of bicycles'. I've also reviewed his novels The Third Policeman and At Swim-Two-Birds on The Book Book. I've even found myself tapped up to contribute an article about O'Nolan's attitude to religion for an Irish Catholic magazine (I said 'No', not all that politely).]
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