THE VARIOUS LIVES OF KEATS AND CHAPMAN (AND THE BROTHER)

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THE VARIOUS LIVES OF KEATS AND CHAPMAN (AND THE BROTHER)

Name: THE VARIOUS LIVES OF KEATS AND CHAPMAN (AND THE BROTHER)
Author: Flann O’Brien
ISBN: 0-312-32907-5

by Flann O’Brien ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2005

Irish to the gills, a festive delight, and fully aware of what it is—and what it isn’t.

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Newspaper columns and a stage adaptation (The Brother) quilted out of O’Brien’s novels make for a merry little patchwork of literary pleasures from the late (d. 1966) comic master (At Swim-Two-Birds, 1939).

Jamie O’Neill (whose own 2002 masterpiece he titled At Swim, Two Boys) explains that in 1940, when London publishers roundly rejected The Third Policeman, O’Brien’s second novel, the author “turned to journalism” and, over the next 20 years, wrote a column for the Irish Times that, to judge by the 85 short selections here, was dedicated often to the construction of a shaggy-dog sort of tiny tale leading up to the most witty, appalling, groan-worthy, intricate, or inventive pun conceivable. O’Brien (writing as Myles na Gopaleen) often employed his pair of fictional friends, Keats and Chapman (who “met” in the Keats ode on Chapman’s Homer), putting them into any variety of situation needed to produce the desired result. Keats, hence, in “Stradivarius,” is a violinist whose dog, named Byrne, gets lost. Keats goes on practicing even so. Chapman, “looking in for an after-supper pipe,” is surprised at Keats’s “composure.” Asks Keats: “And why should I not fiddle . . . while Byrne roams?” The delicacy of the writing and delivery is all: synopsized thus, the reader’s groan will dominate, but along with the light-footed subtlety and pitch-perfect drollery of O’Brien’s setup, even the most awful spoonerism will delight rather than gag, whether “In a pique in Darien,” “Please Byrne when Red,” or “I’m afraid I put my food in it.” In the case of “The Brother,” the long monologue adapted by Eamon Morrissey, what steals the show is the voice of an Irish drinking man, who has his own wandering inventiveness, hyperbole, and fancy: and who, along with his never-seen brother, is in fact being “written,” by someone known only as “your man,” into stories and situations that—well, that are soulful, sad, absurd, hilarious at once, ending both in laughter and in death.

Irish to the gills, a festive delight, and fully aware of what it is—and what it isn’t.

Pub Date: March 1, 2005

ISBN: 0-312-32907-5

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
FURTHER CUTTING
by Flann O’Brien & edited by Kevin O’Nolan

- BOOK REVIEW
AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS
by Flann O’Brien

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.