The Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien Read online

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  1 For a more detailed discussion of Irish literary censorship, see Keith Hopper, “The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Flann O’Brien and the Censorship Code,” Literature and Ethics: Questions of Responsibility in Literary Studies, ed. Neil Murphy et al. (New York: Cambria Press, 2009), pp. 221–41.

  Acknowledgments

  Initially, thanks are offered to John O’Brien and Jeremy M. Davies, of Dalkey Archive Press, for their steadfast support of this venture, and for their ongoing contribution to literature that matters. Thanks too to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, NTU Singapore, for financial support that lead directly to this volume.

  Several postgraduate students helped with early drafts of the individual stories, including Tansey Tang and Esther Ng; all of their work is greatly appreciated. Zhang Jieqiang worked as a research assistant on the later drafts, and his keen eye and meticulous editorial assistance were invaluable. Donal McCay and Paula Tebay offered useful commentary on some of the stories, and their readerly responses to “Naval Control” were particularly instructive.

  Colleagues far and near have been crucial sounding-boards over the past few years, most notably Dr Daniel Jernigan, Prof Ondej Pilný, Dr Jack Fennell, Dr Robert Lumsden, W. Michelle Wang, Annie Proulx, Aidan Higgins, Timothy O’Grady, Mikel Murfi, Eoghan Nolan, Dr Derek Hand, Dr Peter van de Kamp, Dr Joseph Brooker, Bernard O’Donoghue, Mick Henry, and Dr Jennika Baines, while Paul Fagan and Dr Ruben Borg of the International Flann O’Brien Society have been a great source of support and practical advice. Prof Joan Dean, Dr Carol Taaffe, John Wyse Jackson, Adam Winstanley, Dr Alana Gillespie, Marion Quirici and Adrian Naughton all provided important bibliographic information and materials, while Dr Seosamh Mac Muirí and Deirdre Learmont gave their expert advice on the stories in Irish. We are also very grateful to Eddie O’Kane for his wonderful artwork, and to David O’Kane for his visual expertise.

  A special word of thanks is owed to Justine Sundaram, of the John J. Burns Library, Boston College, who was a constant source of support in very real, practical terms, despite numerous requests above and beyond the norm. Emma Wilcox, the English subject librarian at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences library, NTU, has, as always, been extremely supportive. Thanks, too, to David Chaplin and Astrid Fraser at St Clare’s International College, Oxford, and to Prof Lance Pettitt and the Centre for Irish Studies at St Mary’s Uni versity College, Twickenham.

  Thanks are due to the Estate of Brian O’Nolan, for copyright permissions, and to Henry Thayer, at Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc., who currently represent the Estate.

  Deepest gratitude, as always, is offered to Niamh Moriarty and Su Salim Murphy for their practical support and encouragement.

  Short Stories translated from the Irish (1932–33)

  Translator’s Note

  The protean creature known variously as Brian Ó Nualláin, Brian O’Nolan, and Brian Nolan (amongst many others) spoke as many kinds of Irish as he had names. A native of Strabane in County Tyrone, he spent the first few years of his life in a household where nothing was spoken except Ulster Irish, and following the family’s move to Dublin, he joined an education system in which Irish was held in a similar regard to Latin or Classical Greek—interesting, perhaps, but of no immediate relevance to the modern world, with a grammatical system and a vocabulary (drawn mostly from old poetry) indicative of the formal speech of a vanished aristocracy rather than a living vernacular. Ó Nualláin was an adolescent during the War of Independence (or the Anglo-Irish War, if you prefer), and became an adult as the country became a Free State. Having triumphed in a bitter Civil War, the Free State government pursued the restoration of the Irish language as a means to restore their own nationalist credibility, an effort that gave rise to a hotly contested “official standard” dialect (an Caighdeán Oifigiúil). In a very real sense, the Dáil (or principal chamber of the Irish parliament) was attempting to create a language by committee—a situation that positively begged to be savaged by a bilingual satirist.

  In addition to his native dialect and the Caighdeán Oifigiúil, Ó Nualláin wrote in Béarlachas (English-inflected pidgin Gaelic) and deliberately bad Irish, and he was not above coining new phrases for comedic effect (see “The Arrival and Departure of John Bull” in this volume for some examples). In many cases, it is necessary to have Ó Nualláin’s own grasp of the structure of the Irish language to understand a joke, and one of his favourite tricks was to write certain snippets of dialogue in Roman type, in short stories that were otherwise entirely printed in the government-approved “uncial” script. It is sometimes impossible not to lose a joke in translation, and explanatory footnotes do not really help.

  In explaining the jokes, I have done Ó Nualláin’s subtle humour a disservice, but in my defence, the Irish language is bristling with linguistic traps that prompt esoteric puns—for instance, the word “francach,” written with a lowercase f, means “rat,” but with a capital F, means “French” or “French person.” The Irish equivalent for “There’s no place like home” (“Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteáin féin,” “There’s no fireside like one’s own fireside”) is lampooned in a pun that insightfully comments on the subjective evaluation of one’s own misfortune (“Níl aon tón tinn mar do thóin tinn féin,” “There’s no sore arse like one’s own sore arse”). It can be a tricksy, slippery language, an ideal medium for a tricksy, slippery man like Ó Nualláin / O’Nolan / O’Brien. Trying to find the English for “Seacht nGeach” nearly drove me insane, and I owe a debt of gratitude to my teacher Seosamh Mac Muirí for helping me out on that one.

  Seo é mo bhus—slán go fóill!

  —Jack Fennell, University of Limerick, 2013

  Revenge on the English in the Year 2032! (1932)

  by Brian Ó Nualláin

  With regard to the business of nourishment, the worldly man who earns his crust from the sweat of his brow more often experiences the lack of hunger than its excess, and it is true that this state of affairs is to be preferred; and it is also true that deliverance should be granted to the bag of bones who is empty but for the scrapings of the porridge-pot, or a couple of seed-potatoes with a drop of milk; but when a man is full to bursting point, he truly is in a sorry state. There is nothing left for him to do but fall into a deep sleep, with a powerful hope in him that he will find relief when he awakes.

  WHERE AM I?

  Thus it was for me, around Christmas, when this affliction, the disease of the bursting belly, came upon me and worked its mischief to render me insensible. Instead of going down to Hell or ascending to Heaven, as I had done many times before, I perceived that I was in a tightly packed place, on a cold, wide, sloping platform, packed from one end to the other by a horrible crowd of people that were slowly moving down the incline. After a long delay, shuffling and shoving, we reached another, more even platform, and the people spread out away from me a little. I put down the big heavy bag which I suddenly felt in my grasp, and I started fixing my cravat and staring about, trying to make sense of the scene around me.

  Where in the world am I?, I wondered. Am I in Ireland or in Aran or in the deepest recesses of the devil’s Hell? To my right I spotted a pious-looking priest tying his shoelaces, and that settled the case about Hell, but I was looking and listening for another while yet before I realised that I was standing on a harbour.

  I CAME ABOARD A SHIP

  “It’s likely,” I said to myself, “that I just came off that ship.” But, dear reader, what a ship! It was a narrow, streamlined, elegant vessel that was resting in the water, shivering and trembling as though she was impatient to be released back out onto the deep, slicing through the waves and charging off on her way, just like a hound on the hunt, seizing the wind before her and racing ahead of the gale behind. . . .

  Ah, a thousand pities seven times over, gentle reader! How empty and miserly is the language of today, when we try to speak of unearthly wonder! There is neither oratory in the mouth nor literatur
e in the pen for it, and even if there were, neither would suffice in this particular instance.

  I was startled when I noticed a vicious little busybody opening my bag, trying, or so I thought, to steal my night-clothes.

  “Well now!” I said, giving him a little kick in the ankle. He saw the temper on me and raised his head.

  “Do you have any whiskey?” he asked.

  “The saints in Heaven know that there’s a shortage of spirits going on,” I said, sniggering. “But that whole business is behind me now for a long time. I’d love a little glass just now, all the same: never before in my life have my senses been so deranged!”

  A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE!

  “You have to pay five shillings on this hat,” he said, pulling a new hat out of the depths of the bag. I paid the money without saying a word, and he gave me a receipt; I looked at it, and the date filled me with astonishment—12/02/2032.

  “I thought,” I said, “that it was only the eleventh.”

  I picked up my bag. I felt those people moving over yonder towards the long electric train that was standing near us; I pushed myself over, with great struggling and shoving, and I was about to board when I realised that someone behind me was trying to catch my attention. I turned, and I saw a small, low fellow, as broad as three men, a sharp, bitter face on him, and a strange squareness to his shoulders that brought the image of a bull to mind. An Englishman, I said to myself, if God ever created one. He spoke, and I knew from his accent and his words that I was correct.

  AN ENGLISHMAN, TO BE SURE

  “Excuse me,” he said shyly, “but do you speak English?”1

  “I do indeed,” I said politely, answering in English. “If you need my assistance or my counsel, you shall have them in abundance.”

  “Well, I’m in a bit of a hole,” he said timidly. “You see, not speaking your beastly language here, I am rather at sea. I meant to buy a phrasebook before I left Holyhead, but I forgot about it in the rush of getting away—and here I am. Not one of these officials knows what the dickens I’m talking about. What I want to know is the address of an English-speaking hotel—in Blaclee—is that right?”2

  “Hmm,” I said. “That’s not so bad. I believe there is at least one person who speaks English in every hotel in the city. I have a little phrasebook I picked up on the ship. You’re welcome to it.” I gave it to him:

  PHRASEBOOK

  Suitable, appropriate and expedient for the use of the foreigner, includes:

  • Gaelic songs and airs

  • Gaelic phrases

  • Ulster Gaelic phrases

  With reference to the everyday lives of the people in every district, diocese and parish of Ireland.

  Price: Gandailín / threepence / half-réal.3

  The little Englishman opened the book. I recognised from his gloomy expression and his twisted mouth that Gaelic was not coming to him easily. Not that surprising, I supposed. I looked around to see who else was in the carriage with us. There was a bulging, haughty-looking man in the corner opposite me, boasting to two women of the wondrous things he had done in London, and next to me there was a pair of young men playing cards and gossiping about some marriage that did not work out. Sitting in front of me was my English student, who was now shaking and laughing with relief.

  SPEAKING GAELIC

  The train moved quickly along on its journey and after a little while, the Englishman looked up and said:

  “I am in need of, I want, I require, food, food, food!”4

  “Aha!” said I. My God, who ever heard a proclamation like that before!

  “How are you? How are things? How’s tricks?”

  “Well, well, and well,” I replied, in spite of myself.

  “I awoke, I woke up, I arose at seven o’clock, my boy, my lad, my buck!”

  “Well, well, well,” I said.

  “Where is the public house, the pub, the nearest and closest and least-far-away church. I am a Protestant, Catholic, Jewish Scottish Orangeman! . . . How’s that?”

  “Well now,” I said, speaking in English, “that’s not too bad at all. Don’t try too hard to vocalise the ‘ch’ sound: at the moment, you’ll only burst your larynx. You’ve got a good bit of Gaelic already, and you’re well able for it. Keep at it, and may it work out for you.”

  THE TREACHERY OF THE ENGLISH

  “Thanks,” he said. He opened the book again and started studying. I took out my pipe, lit it, and turned my attention to the estimation and examination of the foreigner.

  “Englishman”! That one word put thousands of thoughts spilling into my mind; I thought of the insult and injury that had been done to the Gaels by Diarmaid Mac Murchadha,5 and from then after—the English lords murdering Gaels and stealing their land. The broken Treaty of Limerick, the laws against the Faith—the death of Gaelic and its hard, agonising rebirth, and to top it all off, the shameful deed that was done when 2,000 respectable Corkmen were killed in Dublin on Halloween, 1997, by the machinations of the British Government.

  A sudden fit of anger and hatred hit me; I turned to John Bull, and spoke to him:

  TEACHING THE PROFANITIES

  “I’m just after remembering,” I said in English, “that there’s a British Hotel in the city, and nothing is spoken there but your own English. When we reach the city, take your bag to the first taxi you see, and say to the driver—well, say these words. . . .”

  I have no desire, fair reader, to publish the words I taught to him: but I don’t mind telling you that no earthly ear has ever heard a stream of talk so full of malevolence, of ancient, awful, filthy and sour maledictions, of dark, vexed, intemperate curses, and tremendous oaths so vile they could make a corpse walk again. Never before was such a despicable monologue composed.

  The two of us worked so hard, me instructing and him memorising, that he had a respectable grasp of the speech long before we reached our destination.

  All that’s left now is to pin the tail on my story. When the train stopped, I waved John Bull a hurried goodbye, took off out of his sight, hid behind a wall and focused my two eyes on him. Yer man picked up his bags, hastened to a taxi, put down his luggage and turned to the driver.

  WHAT HAPPENED THEN

  His back was to me, so I was not able to determine when he started, or if the talk was coming to him easily. But I saw that there was a bright blush spreading across the back of his neck and, it seemed to me, that he was emphasising his recitation with hand gestures, putting great energy and exertion into it. An ominous change came over the face of the taxi driver, who looked as though rage was taking hold of him; even though the driver was obviously offended, it seemed that John Bull managed to get halfway through a second recitation of the spiel before the driver launched into a furious attack on him, and it seemed to me that I had better be on my way.

  As I departed, I glanced over my shoulder, and I saw that my student was in the custody of a big, Gaelic Garda: and sure as Easter falls on a Sunday, I knew that Garda was a Corkman.

  That’s how it happened, good reader; and if my story warrants a postscript, here’s one for you: if Diarmaid Mac Murchadha played a dreadful trick on the Gaels, the Gaels have never been slow to give a little beating to Diarmaid’s friends, if God grants them the opportunity!

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  1 Translator’s Note: The original story was published in Gaelic uncial script, except for the parts spoken by the tourist. This joke is lost when the entire narrative is rendered in Roman type.

  2 The tourist is mispronouncing “Baile Átha Cliath,” the Gaelic name for Dublin.

  3 “Gandailín” means “little gander,” and is probably a reference to an Irish coin of the future. From 1928 to the introduction of the euro in 2002, Irish coinage featured particular animals—horse, bull, hen, hare, salmon, pig, woodcock and wolfhound—rather than heads of state or other symbols. The obverse to all of these coins was a harp.

  4 In the original, the Englishman briefly starts speaking Gaelic (and in uncial scr
ipt) at this point.

  5 A deposed King of Leinster, who pledged allegiance to King Henry II of England in exchange for military support to reclaim his crown, thus triggering the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1171.

  The Arrival and Departure of John Bull:

  The Relic of English—Let it Be Put on Record! (1932) 1

  by Brian Ó Nualláin

  I recently found this bizarre epic beneath the floor of a house that was being demolished on Tara Street, Dublin, as the street was being widened. We have no knowledge of the author or his people, but it seems this story concerns the world of tomorrow rather than the ancient past. Not everything in this story is as unbelievable as it may seem.

  On an assembly day, when the high-council was convened by Seán Mac Cumhaill, son of Airt son of Tréanmhóir of the Lineage of Baoisgne, and the seven tribes of the Gaels and the seven tribes of the Common Gaels2 were gathered in Dun Laoghaire, they cast their eyes on the tide and the wide open sea, and it was not long before they saw, coming directly from the east, a speedy, scurrying boat with full sails, swiftly scudding across the surging, surly seas,3 in towards the land.

  THE GIANT

  As that big wide ship came ashore and its sails were taken down, the nobles of Ireland expected masses, multitudes and militias to come charging out of her, but they saw but one warrior—a tall, brawny, twisted man, misshapen, murderous, malformed, crooked-toothed and monstrous, and he slowly, sluggishly, wearily coming in from the ship to the beautiful shores of Éireann, coming to attack Seán Mac Cumhaill and the nobles of Ireland.

  FLEEING BEFORE HIM

  That’s what Seán and the nobles were thinking, anyway, as they saw this giant coming towards them. Wonder and revulsion overtook them at the sight of him, and they rose to their feet, pulled their livery and armour on over their bare thighs and buttocks, and departed quickly and swiftly; they went quick-footed4 on their way, mad for road; they departed in a mass migration and stampede; and proceeded, nimbly, boldly, speedily, and witlessly, without cease nor delay, to the obscure unknown cities and to the tangled, knotty dark forests: and to every other place that could provide shelter in the kingdom of Dublin.