Monday 9 April 2012

Flann O' Brien and Caragiale

Although it was only last Sunday that I mentioned him, I feel  I need to return to Flann O' Brien because the man was a comic genius. I am going through The Poor Mouth at the moment and it's been some time since I laughed out loud while reading.

Bearing the mark of great humour, the comic streak doesn't come only from the story and the language used, but also from the entire context in which the action is placed. While I am certainly not an expert in Irish matters, and without wanting to reduce the importance of very different historical, social and economical factors, I feel there is a certain spiritual affinity between the Romanians and the Irish in at least three aspects.

First of all, as someone put it after we've went through a nice meal, a glass of wine, a couple of whiskies and a long chat, it seems we're both great when it comes to dead people and commemorations. Then, we both seem to have a certain penchant for icons that constitute our national ethos and how they should be guarded. And, not least, the general reaction when somebody dares to be very honest on the issue of national ethos.

Flann O' Brien was not a man to mince his words (as can be seen in his Irish Times Cruiskeen Lawn column), and when he wrote The Poor Mouth he set out to expose some idea(l)s by pastiching them to death. And he wrote everything in the best Irish Gaelic, going so far as having paragraphs written entirely in classical 11th-13th century Irish.

In the context of late 19th - early 20th Irish literature, it appears there was a  trend of rural novels meant to highlight the real Irish (as opposed to the Anglicised, foreignised Irish) life. Reading a little on the subject, I was struck by a strange resemblance between this trend and the so-called Sămănătorist fashion that was the rage in Romania in about the same time. The name of the current comes from the literary magazine Sămănătorul - The Sower, which promoted a (semi) idyllic view of the Romanian countryside, scattered with traditional values and "real" Romanian ethos.  In both cases, the idyllic, folkloristic view made way in due time to a more realist tone that puts an emphasis on hardship.

In O' Brien's case, when he decided to write about the hard life of Gaelic peasants in the Gaeltacht by presenting the life of Bonaparte O' Coonassa, he decided to present poverty as the direst poverty that ever was as this seemed to be the true mark of a true Gael:

[Grandfather O' Coonassa says to his daughter in law who had just swept the house clean]
"When I was a raw youngster growing up, I was (as is clear to any reader of the good Gaelic books) a child among the ashes. You have thrown all the ashes of the house back into the fire or swept them out and not a bit left for the poor child on the floor to let him into. It's an unnatural and unregulated training and rearing he'll have without any experience of the ashes [...]
[My mother] took a bucket full of muck, mud and ashes and hen's droppings from the roadside and spread it around the hearth gladly in front of me. When everything was arranged, I moved over near the fire and for five hours became a child of the ashes - a raw youngster rising up according to the old Gaelic tradition. [...] the foul stench of the fireplace stayed with me for a week."

At some point, there is a Gaelic feast taking place in Corkadoracha, O' Coonassa's village, and all present are treated to fine orations:

"Gaels! he said. It delights my Gaelic heart to be here today speaking Gaelic with you at this Gaelic Feis in the Gaeltacht. May I state that I am a Gael. [...] Likewise, you are all truly Gaelic. We are all Gaelic Gaels of Gaelic lineage. [...] There is nothing in this life that is so nice and so Gaelic as truly Gaelic Gaels who speak in true Gaelic Gaelic about the truly Gaelic language [...]"

If you replace Gael and Gaelic with Romanian, you will obtain a text with the same flavour  written by the great Romanian comic writer Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912) about what he called "the Pure Romanians" (românii verzi):

"[...] The Statutes of the “Pure Romanians” Society
Cap. I – About the name, members, and emblem of the society
Art. 1 – It is established in Romania a Romanian society with the name of “Pure Romanians”.
Art. 2 – Anybody can be part of this society, with no discrimination of sex, age and political colour, provided they are pure Romanian men and pure Romanian women.
Art. 3 – The Emblem of the society will be a pure Romanian crushing mightily with his heel the snake of foreign-ness, which is grinding its teeth and screaming.
Cap. II – About the duties of the members of the society in general
Art. 4 – The members of any sex or age of the “Pure Romanians” society have the duty to hate everything that is foreign and everything that comes from foreigners, everything that is not pure Romanian, or everything that does not come from a pure Romanian. [...]"


The entire sketch can be read on the net on Wikisource (Romanian only).

However, exposing this kind of national harrumphing is a dangerous business, and Caragiale had long battles with those accusing him of being a bad Romanian (some adversaries attacking him for his Greek origins). In the end he decided to leave for Berlin (1905), where he died in 1912.

We should not be surprised that The Poor Mouth, "this cruelly funny assault on the fashionable Gaelic Revival of the day brought the wrath of the custodians of national sentiment upon O' Brien's head for many years thereafter" (see book description on Amazon).

Both writers have done their duty to speak out, on the model of "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear". Some did not want to hear. Some heard and didn't like the truth they were hearing.

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