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Flann O'Brien

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-modernist

Keith Hopper author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cork University Press

Published:13th Oct '11

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Flann O'Brien cover

Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, completed in 1940, was initially rejected by his publishers for being 'too fantastic', and only appeared posthumously in 1967. Since then O'Brien has achieved cult status, although critical appraisal of his work has focused almost exclusively on his first novel, At Swim Two Birds (1939). By 1940 O'Brien was confronted with two towering traditions: the jaded legacy of Yeats's Celtic Twilight and the problematic complexities of Joyce's modernism. With The Third Policeman O'Brien forges a powerful synthesis between these two traditions, and the paraliterary path he chooses marks the historical transition from modernism to post-modernism. This groundbreaking study, first published in 1995 and now substantially revised, reconfigures O'Brien as a highly subversive writer within a rich and fertile literary landscape: indisputably Irish yet distinctly post-modern. It identifies The Third Policeman as a subversive intellectual satire, in the cutting-edge tradition of Swift and Sterne, and situates it as one of the earliest - and most exciting - examples of post-modernist fiction.

'The highest praise I can give a critical book is that it makes me want to read or re-read the works discussed. Keith Hopper's book on Flann O'Brien does that. He makes reading Flann O'Brien sound like an exciting and productive thing to do'. (J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine) 'Hopper is a good explicator, his approach is illuminating and such enthusiasm for Flann O'Brien is infectious'. (David Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement, 30 October 2009) 'This study is impressive, even brilliant, in its scope, thoroughness, mastery, and persuasiveness. Not to be missed is its clear delineation of post-modernism as a valid and defined literary approach. Summing up: Highly recommended'. (R.R. Joly, CHOICE Reviews Online, October 2009)

ISBN: 9781859184875

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

292 pages

new ed of 2nd revised ed