Word: dangerfields
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...polite society. He has had some time to observe these, having fled the hopelessly declasse shores of New York City, his birthplace, to more genteel echelons in Ireland. His first novel, The Ginger Man, instantly revealed an affection for the upper classes and their dirty linen. In creating Sebastian Dangerfield, dissolute hero and impoverished aristocrat, Donleavy unleashed one of the most charming rogues of twentieth century English literature--suave, jaunty, devilishly...
...this irreverence suggests that Donleavy is himself a sort of Sebastian Dangerfield, and in fact The Ginger Man was written with highly autobiographical intentions. In the 25 years since its publication, however, Donleavy has changed considerably. The dandyish narrator of The Unexpurgated Code is far removed from Donleavy the young novelist...
...Ginger Man, though essentially comic in tone, possesses a real undercurrent of melancholy, a curious gaelic sentimentality, which always qualifies the humor Dangerfield's existence is stifled; all he wants is "ease and comfort and quiet," but that is denied him throughout his rakish wanderings and loveless manipulations of others. As he becomes more and more desirous of this unfettered contentment, he is increasingly desperate and pressed to make ends meet. Ultimately he begins to see the folly and waste of this pursuit, and is saved from financial desperation by the improbable intercession of a wealthy friend...
Well, there you have it, characterization of a cross-country coach who has spent a quarter of his life leading the Crimson harriers but who comes out looking like a cross between Napoleon and Rodney Dangerfield...
...many readers of The Ginger Man, James Patrick Donleavy's first and best novel, can somehow imagine its savagely baleful young anti-hero Sebastian Dangerfield being resurrected a quarter of a century afterward and sitting down to compose an advice book for late 20th century man, they should have a rough idea of The Unexpurgated Code. It might well be subtitled I'm Not O.K., You're Not O.K. A collection of bilious and often funny rules for living, the book qualifies as philosophy according to Donleavy's own definition: thoughts generated while confronting "wind, flood...