Goodbye Yeats and O'Neill : farce in contemporary Irish and Irish-American narratives

324 Pages·2010·2.5 MB·English

by  Hagan, Edward Alphonsus

Goodbye Yeats and O’Neill
Farce in Contemporary Irish
and
Irish-American Narratives
Costerus New series 183
Series Editors:
C.C. Barfoot, Theo D’haen
and Erik Kooper
Goodbye Yeats and O’Neill
Farce in Contemporary Irish
and
Irish-American Narratives
Edward A. Hagan
Amsterdam-New York, NY 2010
Cover photo by Cathal Cawley. Photo taken from a wall near Bellews
Castle in Castletown, Dundalk, Co. Louth, Ireland, on the grounds
of the Dun Lughaidh Secondary School.
Cover design: Aart Jan Bergshoeff
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of
“ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for
documents - Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-2993-4
E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-2994-1
©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010
Printed in the Netherlands
For Denise, Peter, and Christine
CONTENTS

Acknowledgements v

Introduction. The Donkeys and the Narrowbacks:
Contemporary Circus Animals 3

Part One Memoirs – Defining Where We Are Now

1. Defining the Object for Struggle: Epistemology in the Age
of Autobiography – Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes
and Seamus Deane, Reading in the Dark 23
2. Belfast and South Boston: Cut off from Serious
Consideration – Gerry Adams, Before the Dawn
and Michael Patrick MacDonald, All Souls 51
3. The Void of Irish Identity: Nuala O’Faolain,
Are You Somebody 61

Part Two The Writers Strike Back: Using Irony to
Subvert the Fascination of Cultural Studies

4. Tim O’Brien’s Ironic Aesthetic: Faith and the Nature
of a “True” Story (co-authored with John Briggs) 75
5. The Delusion of Cultural Studies: Colm Tóibín,
The Blackwater Lightship 99

Part Three Serious and Not-So-Serious Farce
in Contemporary Irish Fiction

6. Picaresque Farce: Nick Laird, Utterly Monkey 113
7. Icons for the New Age: The Transvestite in Patrick
McCabe’s Breakfast on Pluto and the Ballet
Dancer in Colum McCann’s Dancer 125
8. Home Isn’t There Any More: William Trevor’s The Story
of Lucy Gault and John McGahern’s By the Lake 135
9. Transforming Nostalgia for the Victorian: Clare
Boylan’s Charlotte Brontë Novel, Emma Brown 149
10. The Irish Western Epic: Roddy Doyle Remakes
John Ford – The Last Roundup 165

Part Four Farce in Contemporary Irish-American Fiction:
Symptom of the Triviality of American Society

11. The American Wake: Alice McDermott, Child of My Heart 191
12. Being Irish and Being Nothing: The Abyss of Identity
in Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy and Edward J.
Delaney’s Fiction 205
13. The Headache and the Aspirin: Sex as Disease and Cure in
Sherman Alexie’s The Toughest Indian in the World,
Colum McCann’s This Side of Brightness, and Other
Contemporary Stories 233
14. Low Seriousness in Beth Lordan’s But Come Ye Back 247
15. The Decay of Lying? On Life Support in William
Kennedy’s Roscoe and Thomas Kelly’s The Rackets 257
16. Visiting the American Sixties on Ireland: Mary Gordon’s
Pearl 269
17. The Necessity and Futility of Romance:
Thomas Kelly’s Empire Rising 281

Part Five An Historian’s Need to Define the Irish Story

18. What Is the Irish Story? R.F. Foster’s The Irish Story 293

Postscript The Function of Farce at the Present Time 305

Appendix: The Pattern of Reading in the Dark 311

Bibliography 315

Index 321
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Goodbye Yeats and O’Neill results from conversations with many
colleagues and friends over the last five years or so. I am particularly
indebted to my colleagues in the Department of Writing, Linguistics,
and Creative Process at Western Connecticut State University.
Raymond Baubles, Oscar De Los Santos, and John Briggs read the
manuscript and, on many runs in Wooster Cemetery past the grave of
Charles Ives, they listened patiently to my ravings and offered very
helpful suggestions. To Ray Baubles I owe particularly an increased
consciousness of the use of Victorian writers in contemporary
literature; to Oscar De Los Santos, a greatly enhanced understanding
of the relationship between the fantastic and farce; and to John Briggs,
the co-author of the chapter on Tim O’Brien, whatever understanding
of chaos theory I can claim. But there is no way to adequately express
how much of their critical acuity is represented in this book.
I have had the great luck of associating with many colleagues at
Western Connecticut who have greatly encouraged my work. I must
mention the always faithful and wise advice of Herbert Janick,
Christopher Kukk, and James Pegolotti, who have run the Wednesday
afternoon salon at the Holiday Diner for many years. Dean Linda
Vaden-Goad and Assistant Dean Abbey Zink have been most
affirming colleagues. I wish to thank also my other colleagues at
Western Connecticut and other great friends who supported me
intellectually and spiritually in my recovery from serious injuries in an
auto accident in 2005 and encouraged me to persevere with my
scholarship: Mark Barrett, John Bergstrom, Kathleen Brady, Brendan
Brophy, John Caruso, Brian Clements, Jack Dunn, Richard
Halliburton, Carol Hawkes, Connie Hellmann, Paul Hines, Denis J.
Hynes, Jay Jackson, Jeanne Lakatos, Jack Leopold, Richard J. Lundy,
Peter Lyons, John Malone, Hugh McCarney, Cecilia Miller, Vijay
Nair, Lynne Paris-Purtle, Thomas Philbrick, and James Scrimgeour.
vi
I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Joanne Elpern, who runs the
interlibrary loan at the Ruth Haas Library. She is a genius at finding
materials that would have been otherwise not available to me.
I have had great help from colleagues in Irish Studies at home and
abroad. I must mention Michael Gillespie, Richard Haslam, Patrick
Hicks, Roy Johnston, Thomas Kelly, Joseph Lennon, Beth Lordan,
Patrick Maume, Colum McCann, Frank McCourt, Mary McGlynn,
Thomas McGuire, Barbara Mennell, Patricia Monaghan, Matthew J.
O’Brien, James S. Rogers, Eileen Sullivan, and Eamonn Wall.
I thank my cousin, Cathal Cawley, for scouring County Louth in
driving rain to find and take the picture that adorns the cover. Thanks
to him and all the Cawleys for their hospitality on several occasions
while I was working on this book.
It has been a sheer joy and great luck to work with my very
professional editors at Editions Rodopi. Esther Roth has been prompt
and efficient in all matters, and C.C. Barfoot’s very patient and close
reading of my typescript has greatly improved the text.
I am indebted to New Hibernia Review, The Recorder, and Nua:
Studies in Contemporary Irish Literature, which published early
versions of three chapters.
My work on this project has been facilitated by Connecticut State
University/American Association of University Professors Research
Grants over a period of several years and by awards of released time
for research facilitated by the Western Connecticut State University
Research and Development Committee and by Provost Linda Rinker.
I cannot begin to express my debt to my wife, Denise Lepicier, and
to my children, Peter and Christine, who are constant sources of joy
and encouragement.
“You stupid donkey pricko!”

“Little treacherous narrowbacks they are, each and every one of
them.” – the words of Danny Casey about his own children as they
grow up in the Bronx.

“But don’t you mind your father; baseball is a grand game, too.
You’re in New York now.” – the advice of Michael Briody to Casey’s
kids when charged with indifference to the “proper sport” of hurling.1

“Everything, always, turns to farce.” – Freddie Montgomery
describing his many situations.2

1 Thomas Kelly, Empire Rising (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 216,
226 and 227.
2 John Banville, The Book of Evidence (New York: Vintage, 1989), 46.