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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
2019 review:
i'm sure it's a classic for a reason, and that reason is probably that people are smarter than me, but in my opinion this wasn't interesting and there were no funny bits. if anything it just felt like proof that men in the 1930s could write literally any words in a completely random order and publishers were just like "ah. yes. genius". i know it's unfair to start drawing comparisons when you've just finished a really good book, but i'm gonna do it anyway: this book was first published in 1939. i just finished The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter yesterday, which was published in 1940. without having read anything else they've written, carson mccullers was a better writer when she was 23 than flann o'brien was at 28. women stay winning.
i'm sure it's a classic for a reason, and that reason is probably that people are smarter than me, but in my opinion this wasn't interesting and there were no funny bits. if anything it just felt like proof that men in the 1930s could write literally any words in a completely random order and publishers were just like "ah. yes. genius". i know it's unfair to start drawing comparisons when you've just finished a really good book, but i'm gonna do it anyway: this book was first published in 1939. i just finished The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter yesterday, which was published in 1940. without having read anything else they've written, carson mccullers was a better writer when she was 23 than flann o'brien was at 28. women stay winning.
challenging
slow-paced
I think I’m too dumb to fully grasp this book. The few parts I did understand grabbed my attention and held it until another of his transcripts appeared and it would lose me completely. I’ll come back to it eventually bjt for the moment it’ll stay dnf
The edition of this I have was really uncomfortable to hold and I honestly think it ruined the book for me
I don’t think I’m smart enough for this book. It’s so confusing. I have no idea what’s going on. And I hate the main character
Read in the Everyman's Library edition of the Complete Novels of Flann O'Brien:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1003981.The_Complete_Novels
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1003981.The_Complete_Novels
I was hooked by the wit but it wasn't compelling enough to finish the book.
Some people turn to self-help to pull them out of sadness, others to God. I just re-read Flann O'Brien and things generally work out for the best.
The story of an Irish student of literature who rarly attends classes, drinks far too much, and spends most of his days in bed. While in such repose, he pursues literary activities, mainly the writing of a novel.
“One beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with. A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and interrelated only in the prescience of the author….”
The college student thinks up hilarious and adventurous tales involving a large collection of characters. The fictional characters include several writers, one being Dermot Trellis. To clarify, Trellis was a fictional author made up by the Irish student and Trellis has written several books in the student’s fictional tale.
“Trellis has absolute control over his minions but this control is abandoned when he falls asleep. Consequently he must make sure that they are all in bed before he locks up and goes to bed himself. Now do you understand?”
The fictional characters in Trellis’s stories feel misused by their author.
“It was undemocratic to compel characters to be uniformly good or bad or poor or rich. Each should be allowed a private life, self-determination and a decent standard of living.”
The fictional characters revolt.
“…a plot for putting sleeping-draughts in Trellis's porter by slipping a few bob to the grocer's curate. This meant that Trellis was nearly always asleep and awoke only at predeterminable hours, when everything would be temporarily in order….They had to dash back to their respective stations, of course, when the great man was due to be stirring in his sleep.”
The scholar passes his exams and graduates just as the fictional characters are about to make the fictional author, Trellis, pay with his life.
Yes, it’s quite insane!
Yes, it’s quite insane!