This is a book written by Brian O’Nolan under the pseudonym of Flann O’ Brien. It is a small neat book about a man, bicycles, policemen and murder, not necessarily in that order. This will be one of my favourite books once I finish it, with only a few pages left. It is written by an individual whose branch has snapped into tiny wooden shards of unadulterated insanity. All those little stories that formulate in your head, for example, when one experiences agonising boredom or is on the precipice of sleep, can be found inhabiting the pages of this slim book, filled to the brim with the outpourings of a mind explosively fluid and mighty.
From the Book:
” Tricky looking man you are hard to place and it is not easy to guess your station. You seem very contented in one way but then again you do not seem satisfied. What is your objection to life?… “Is it life?” he answered. ” I would rather be without it,” he said, “for there is a queer small utility in it. You can not eat it or drink it or smoke it in your pipe, it does not keep the rain out and it is a poor armful in the dark if you strip it and take it to bed with you after a night of porter when you are shivering with the red passion. It is a great mistake and a thing better done without, like bed jars and foreign bacon.”
Dr.Selby is an side in this book, taking residency in the very long footnotes scattered throughout and a very eccentric man indeed:
” Dr. Selby had some interesting things to say about on the subject of houses. A row of houses he regards as a row of necessary evils. the softening and degenerating of the human race he attributes to its progressive predilection for interiors and waning interest in the art of going out and staying there. This in turn he sees as the result of the rise of such pursuits as reading, chess-playing, drinking, marriage and the like“
Your head may feel it is being pummeled by large meaty fists as you traverse the pages. His style of writing is astounding, delivered like cold, tubular ice-cream into the pits of your brain.
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