Flann O'Brian - Brian O'Nolan

[vinteuil]

... to alert all fans of Myles na Gopaleen - Brother Barnabas - Count O'Blather...

Radio 4 (well, you weren't expecting Radio 3 would have the serious couillons to take this on, now would you?) will on Tuesday tomorrow, that is the Fourth of October, starting at 11.30 in the morning with The Man With Many Names - and then later on, at 3.30 in the afternoon (and the two afternoons following) with episodes of The Brother - be giving us all a little Flann O'Brian fest to cheer us up. Nice!

[amateur51]

How wonderful! A true original.

Is there anyone of his like around these days?

[PatrickOD]

I'll drink to that, gentlemen.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...305145571.html

[amateur51]

I'll drink to that, gentlemen.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...305145571.html

A great yarn - the rising sense of panic

[umslopogaas]

Er, small point at the start, but its O'Brien, not O'Brian.

Just wonderful writing, an original whose fountains of creativity were so strong he couldnt stop them bubbling up even if he had wished it so.

No mention so far of 'The Third Policeman' (I think, forgive me if I'm wrong and he's turned up already, its getting late, for me), but that is a seriously funny, surreal and unsettling novel. O'Brien reminds me slightly of J-L. Borges, in the sense that both can kick the bricks out from under your feet, one by one, until everything you thought was solid is revealed as illusory and you are sent spinning into infinite space which may in itself be an illusion.

Famous Goon Show quote by Eccles: 'Well, every body got to be somewhere'. As a much cleverer person than me once pointed out, that is one of the great existential statements of the last century.

I expect it will have escaped Prince Charles, fan of 'The Goons' though he reputedly is. I sort of suspect most things escape Prince Charles, except what his minders choose to feed into his inbred skull.

Borges' 'The Library of Babel', anyone? And O'Brien over there in Dublin, creating Constable Pluck and his bicycle, not to mention de Selby, the philosopher who thinks night is an accretion of black particles in the air? 'The Third Policeman' is fun, but slightly dangerous too.

[Russ]

Borges' 'The Library of Babel', anyone?

Probably the most inspirational and mind-blowing short story I've ever read.

Russ

[vinteuil]

Umsloppers - oops, sorry for my spilling mistook...

Yes, de Selby. He was a great hero to me, in my teenage years; leaving me with (among other things) a lifelong addiction to footnotes - my plans for a novel entirely existing of footnotes never came to much :sigh:

[John Skelton]

I'll drink to that, gentlemen.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...305145571.html

A pint of plain is your only man.

[handsomefortune]

thanks for the tip to listen,

it was an intriguing start to the programme, and just got better and better..... many will be aware that peter day is usually heard presenting 'in business'. his possibly reporting that the obrien 'product' needed to diversify in recession, and introduced unique new lines: 'the flann obrien apprenticeship scheme'; or 'the flann obrien sausage'; or 'brienjet', or jam, beer, computers ...or whatever. consequently, i took a while to settle down, adjust, relax into olde dublin, rather than contemporary gibberish.

whiskey beer chasers, link with death done n dusted, it all got a lot more cheery as we moved to what obrien created, and left behind, and his double identity. i could go a series devoted to obrien's newspaper column, and i'm wondering about the other progs, and who 'the brother' is.

incidentally, anyone who has been made redundant from a local authority employer of late, can cheer themselves with the thought of obrien's 'graveyard of teeth' description ...(therefore i hope lateral thinking catches the programme, as it's quite inspiring, 'cheery', as promised in mssge 1).

[handsomefortune]

some Hors d'oeuvre anyone?