No Laughing Matter (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Anthony Cronin
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Work: Literary biography
- Time of Work: 1911-1966
- Setting: Ireland, principally Dublin
- Principal Characters: Brian O’nolan, Michael O’Nolan, Agnes O’Nolan, Evelyn O’Nolan
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: Authors or writers, Literature, Wit or humor, Fantasy, Ireland or Irish people, Satire
- Locales: Dublin, Ireland
Flann O’Brien was a novelist; Myles na Gopaleen (properly na gCopaleen) was a newspaper columnist and author of one short novel in Irish; Brian O’Nolan (sometimes Nolan, sometimes 0 Nuallain) was, for more than eighteen years, a civil servant in the Local Government Office of the Irish government. All three were the same person—Brian O’Nolan, to give him his birth name. Anthony Cronin has well handled both the combinations of the three and the distinctions among the three.
Cronin’s choice of the name Flann O’Brien for his subtitle clearly suggests the emphasis of the...
[The entire page is 2559 words long]
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