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Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Boomer with Attitude / News Four great Irish authors for St. Patrick's Day
Posted By John Grooms on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 3:05 PM
As author Thomas Cahill points out today in the New York Times, the Irish saved books for Western civilization: “They saved the books of the Western world and left them as gifts for all humanity” after the collapse of the Roman empire. It’s no surprise, then, that the Irish have a strong tradition of turning out writers (in more ways than one).
So today, St. Patrick’s Day, when you’ve finished drinking green beer, eating green food and throwing up green stuff all over your green lawn, take a break and enjoy some of the world’s best writers. Nearly everyone has heard of the major Irish writers like James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Beckett. Here are three more contemporary Irish writers you may also enjoy, as well as one under-appreciated writer from the 20th century.
Roddy Doyle: Author of the Barrytown Trilogy (The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van), Doyle is a master of dialogue, and most of his works take place at the speed of conversation. Apart from the famed trilogy, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, from 1996, is a undoubted masterpiece.
Anne Enright: I admit I’ve only read one of Enright’s six novels – the 2007 Man Booker Prize winner, The Gathering, but that’s more than enough for a strong recommendation. The story of a woman who returns to Ireland for her alcoholic brother’s funeral, and the fiery, er, family dynamics that ensue, is that rarity in lit: a finely tuned, subtle powerhouse.
Frank McCourt: McCourt, who died last year, took the literary world by storm in 1996 with the release of Angela’s Ashes. Widely considered one of the great autobiographies, Angela’s Ashes described McCourt and his family’s impoverished life in Limerick during the 1930s and 1940s. McCourt’s writing is simple yet poetic and often beautiful, as he brings to life the cloudy, gritty, dilapidated tenor of his childhood. His literary triumph also became a personal triumph over a level of adversity most westerners can hardly imagine.
Flann O’Brien: A stone-cold genius of satire and language whose real name was Brian O’Nolan, his works took nearly a generation to be “discovered” by critics, after his death in 1966. Best known for the novel At Swim-Two-Birds, O’Brien’s writing was often riddled with comic lunacy and spectacularly convoluted, but the payoff — in biting insights and raucous fun — makes him worth the effort. I recommend starting with The Third Policeman.
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