“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Sunday, August 10, 2008

No Country For Grand Men

Crumbs! No sooner had the dust settled on the entirely unnecessary ‘Great Post-Troubles Norn Iron Novel’ baloohaha than Joseph O’Connor, in the context of reviewing Gerard Donovan’s collection of short stories COUNTRY OF THE GRAND, starts banging on about the ‘Great Post-Celtic Tiger Novel’ over at The Guardian, to wit:
“Some of Ireland’s wisest literary commentators have been troubled in recent times by a reticence they perceive among the country’s writers of fiction on the matter of the new prosperity. The novelists have told us nothing – thus runs the argument. An Irish Amis has proved reluctant to appear.
  “Like most debating stances, it obscures as much as it reveals, but its assumptions are more enlightening than its conclusions. Mass-market fiction, the historical novel, the thriller, the crime novel and other incarnations of genre-based storytelling have not been judged worthy of critical notice, no matter their level of engagement with the now deceased Celtic Tiger. Where is our Bret Easton Ellis? Our BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES?”
  In the prevailing spirit of self-biggery-uppery, as modelled by Master Bateman when he voted for I PREDICT A RIOT during the halcyon days of the GTPNIN debate, I’m going to say that blowing up a hospital is a metaphor for deconstructing the Celtic Tiger, and in particular the way Ireland shot its economic boom in the foot (or paw, if you will), because that’s the kind of malarkey the literary types who decide these things seem to like, although I may not be entirely serious in doing so on the basis that novels lauded as ‘the Great [Insert Your Own Pet Obsession Here] Novel’ generally tend to be anything but because they’re too busy trying to disguise the self-aggrandizing promotion of half-baked theories therein. Or is it just me?

3 comments:

Corey Wilde said...

It's not just you.

Declan Burke said...

Is it just both of us?

Anonymous said...

Declan, you should read Country of the Grand if you get a chance. It's an excellent collection.

Hope the little 'un is well.