Product Description

First published in Gaelic in 1941 under the title "An Beal Bocht", this book was translated into English in 1973. A parody of the Gaelic peasant writings of the Irish revival, the book features Bonaparte O'Coonassa - who tells the story of his life. By the author of "The Dalkey Archive".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #191864 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Customer Reviews

The funniest book you'll ever read?
What the synopsis fails to mention is that this is one of the funniest books in this or any other language. The book was originally written in Gaelic as a parody of the J.M. Synge style of Irishness (although O'Brien actually wrote it as a direct take-off of a particular Irish Gaelic novel, the name of which escapes me). And it succeeds: "the sweet words of Gaelic were oftener in their mouths than the potato."

Although written in a light style, the book's satire is bleak, making it the very blackest of satires. It helps if you have some background knowledge of Ireland and the Famine. His like will never be seen again, nor will the terrible nights of noctural deluge and the dread Sea-Cat.

Scabrous joy
This is a brutal and hilarious satire on the selling of Ireland, hitting hard at all phony Irishness and the child-among-the-ashes memoir which still dominates bestseller lists. O'Brien has a rich sense of language which has carried over in this translation from the Gaelic. The book is furiously funny with plenty to laugh out loud at.

Comic genius: why out of print?
While travelling around Ireland recently I encountered Tomas O'Crohan's autobiographical work "The Islandman" and was very drawn in by its lively depiction of life in the Blasket Islands during the latter half of the 19th century into the early 20th.

I told a bookseller about this, and she suggested I read "The Poor Mouth" as it is a direct parody of "The Islandman". Although both books were originally written in Gaelic, the latter (1941) follows within a few years of the O'Crohan book's translation into English. It was over 30 years before "The Poor Mouth" was translated into English for the benefit of a much wider audience.

Greatly benefiting from reading the two books in succession, I was laughing out loud within a few pages, with some chapters reading like Tom Sharpe.

I had a lot of trouble finding a copy of this book in Ireland, even though there was a city-wide promotion of O'Brien's first book in Dublin. His books seem to be rarity in second-hand shops.

I'm not sure if this Paladin edition contains Ralph Steadman's pictures as do the original hardback and Picador editions. Do try to get a copy that has them, as Steadman is the perfect complement to O'Brien's prose.