Flann O'Brien & Modernism brings a much-needed refreshment to the state of scholarship on this increasingly recognised but still widely misunderstood 'second generation' modernist. Rather than construe him as a postmodernist, it correctly locates O'Brien's work as the product of a late modernist sensibility and cultural context. Similarly, while there should be no doubt of his Irishness, and his profound debts to Irish language, history and culture, this collection seeks to understand O'Brien's nationally sensitive achievement as the work of an internationalist whose preoccupations reflect global modernist trends.The distinct themes and concerns tracked in Flann O'Brien & Modernism include characterization in branching narrative forms; the ethics and paradoxes of naming; parody and homage; lies and deception; theatricality; sexuality; technology and transport; and the inevitable matter of drink and intoxication. Taken together, these specific topics construct a mosaic image of O'Brien as an exemplary modernist auteur, abreast of all the most salient philosophical and technical concerns affecting literary production in the period immediately before and after World War Two.

AcknowledgementsContributorsIntroductionRónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia and Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, AustraliaChapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O'BrienSean Pryor, University of New South Wales, AustraliaChapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O'BrienJohn Attridge, University of New South Wales, AustraliaChapter 3 'The outward accidents of illusion': O'Brien and the TheatricalStefan Solomon, University of Sydney, AustraliaChapter 4 The Ghost of 'Poor Jimmy Joyce': A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant ModernistStephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, AustraliaChapter 5 'Do You Know What I'm Going to Tell You?': Flann O'Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of InfluenceDavid Kelly, University of Sydney, AustraliaChapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper NameMaebh Long, University of the South Pacific, FijiChapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O'Brien and Patrick KavanaghJoseph Brooker, University of London, United KingdomChapter 8 Flann O'Brien's Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist MindDirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, BelgiumChapter 9 'Truth is an Odd Number': Flann O'Brien and Infinite ImperfectionBaylee Brits, University of New South Wales, AustraliaChapter 10 'An astonishing parade of nullity': Nihilism in The Third PolicemanRónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, AustraliaChapter 11 Flann O'Brien and Modern Character Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, AustraliaChapter 12 'No unauthorized boozing': Flann O'Brien and the Thirsty MuseSam Dickson Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O'Brien and Frank MoorhouseSascha Morrell, University of New England, AustraliaChapter 14 Flann O'Brien's Aestho-AutogamyMark Steven, University of New South Wales, AustraliaChapter 15 Modernist WheelmenMark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia