Word: behan
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Borstal Boy, by Brendan Behan. A lively swearing of the green by Ireland's latest IRAte young...
...Borstal Boy, Behan...
Gabriel's Gab. As is proper for the hero of his own story, Behan went to his hard school in obedience to family tradition; like his father before him, he was a member of the Irish Republican Army. At 16, in 1939, he traveled to England with the intention of blowing up the battleship King George V. After less than a week and nothing blown up, British po; lice caught Brendan with the explosive goods on him in a Liverpool slum tenement. At Borstal, one of the "screws" (warders) showed a keen sense of British affection for unsuccessful revolutionaries...
Several qualities combine to make Bad Boy Behan's book a pleasant exception in the usually dreary field of schoolboy or prison reminiscence. He has Gabriel's own gift of the gab, a cold eye for himself, a warm heart for others, and the narrative speed of a tinker. On the whole, he also makes good his claim to "a sense of humour that would nearly cause me to burst out laughing at my own funeral, providing...
...Lady Astor? Behan as a boy revolutionary had to put up with the usual political naivete of his British fellow prisoners, who wanted to know about his bombing program: "Why didn't you do in some of the big pots . . . like that old Lady Astor?" There is the usual prison rough stuff where bullies must be identified and overthrown. Behan ("Paddy" to his Borstal pals) was good at both. His worst words are reserved not for the tough screws but for two unpleasant fellow prisoners called James and Dale: "I was no country Paddy from the middle...