The idea of chess being used as a central and unending metaphor in a narrative is not an original one. The links are obvious and the structure is clear. Life is about strategy and staying several moves ahead of the opposition is crucial. Pawns are expendable and with careful play, the good guy, or at […]
Finishing M.J. Hyland’s second novel, Carry Me Down, left me in a curious state. On the one hand I had that satisfied feeling one gets reaching a final full stop, like smacking one’s lips together at the finish of a particularly good meal. On the other, though, my eyebrows knitted together with questions regarding this […]
“‘I recall one superb pun anyway: qui vive la pietà quando e ben morta’ She said nothing. ‘Is it not a great phrase?’ he gushed. She said nothing. ‘Now’ he said like a fool ‘I wonder how you could translate that?’ She still said nothing. Then: ‘do you think’ she murmured ‘it is absolutely necessary […]
I was anxious to meet Brendan Kennelly, the internationally renowned poet and for almost 40 years Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College, Dublin. Not only to conduct this interview with him for Three Monkeys, but finally to ask him the meaning of a phrase I had heard him use many years ago when I […]
Ever since, as James Joyce remarked, we have become “Jung and easily Freudened” it has become necessary, when dealing with a writer, to refer not only to his work but to his private life as well. This is particularly true in the case of Seán O'Casey, one of Ireland's great literary icons. In fact, O'Casey […]
John Banville’s new novel, The Sea, presents us with Max Morden, recently widowed (or is that widowered? as Max mordantly wonders) and returned to the sea-side resort of his childhood. While turning over fragments from his married life with Anna, Max also recalls the strange bond he formed many years ago with the dazzling Graces, […]
Tim Pat Coogan describes interviewing Flann O’Brien in 1964 after the publication of The Dalkey Archive. The interview was carefully planned. Apart from getting him to talk, there was one other main objective: to keep O’Brien away from the drink. It was to take place at 8.30 on a Saturday morning so that he could […]
