Word: gopaleen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...civil service as a young fellow and retired 18 years later with a small pension and a sharp tongue. Before he was 30, Flann O'Brien had published a novel (At Swim-Two-Birds) that won praise from no less a boyo than Jimmy Joyce. Myles na Gopaleen took up writing the odd play now and then but spent close to 25 years doing funny pieces for the newspapers. Now here's a strange thing. All three of these lads died at the same instant on April Fools...
This gift sustained him through all his diverse careers. Nothing fades faster than newspaper humor, and some of the Myles na Gopaleen columns that Editor Jones resurrects should have stayed in the morgue. Many pieces, though, seem remarkably fresh. Humbug and absurdity have not gone out of fashion, and Myles was keenly aware of both. When a local judge levied a stiff jail term on a woman who had been caught shoplifting, the journalist commented: "I suppose he was right when he said there was far too much shoplifting in Dublin but I am not clear how one calculates what...
They did. The Best of Myles (1968) a selection of na Gopaleen's columns in Irish, French and English, gathers together some of the funniest and most incisive pieces of creative vitality ever in newsprint. Critics and fans of Flann resent Myles, O'Nolan's 'unfortunate literary identity,' a jester who distracted the aforementioned Dublin politicoaesthetes while the creative artist tried vainly tc work behind the scenes in his spare time. But perhaps O'Nolan himself, whose writing is always for and of the Irish public, thought his journalism as valid as his novels...
Adding The Poor Mouth ("edited" by na Gopaleen) to The Best of Myles, it's an open question whether Myles isn't the best of O'Nolan. The Gaelic novel is not only written for and of the Gales, but also purports to be by one-a certain Bonaparte O'Coonassa. But the credit transparently belongs to Myles, the columnist concerned about the so-called preservation of Gaelic Ireland, and the satirist who could mock things Gaelic as he lamented their passing, even making fun of his own concerns. All simultaneously, and in the language of the issue, the "Gaeltacht...
...Poor Mouth defines, explains, satirizes and defends "Gaelic". Pick up the book for the simple pleasures of the story and in the two hours it takes to read it you'll come to abominate the word Gaelic but identify with the essence. Na Gopaleen's wit cuts through the affectations and facile enthusiams of all Gaeligores and gives a glimpse of "the world as seen by the folk in Corkadoragha", a remote "Gaeltacht". Though in the preface to the first edition, "The Editor" cautions that Corkadoragha is "without compare" and not to be taken as representative of the Gaelic community...