Flann O'Brien
Born: 10-04-1911
Flann O'Brien, the pen name of Brian O'Nolan, was an influential Irish writer known for his wit and innovative narrative style. Born in 1911, his work spans novels, columns, and plays, often blending humor with philosophical insights. O'Brien's notable works include "At Swim-Two-Birds" and "The Third Policeman," which showcase his mastery of absurdist fiction and linguistic creativity, cementing his place in 20th-century literature.
Book summaries for books written by Flann O'Brien
Quotes
I am so fond of the book that I keep waking up at night to enjoy it.
Human existence is so miraculous that it is not fully realized by most people.
The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly became a bicycle but who now ride around, mainly on public holidays, on the handlebars.
You could not give five old pounds for all the gold that was in Ballyba's treasury, but there was a time when that room contained three golden goblets, six emerald brooches, and a rich bracelet woven from the tufts of the black bull of the imprisonment. But: the things went away without explanation.
I have now learned enough about bicycle lubrication to realize that a chain is like a splendid horse, sleek and fastidious, liking to line up the colored shirt studs in its mane, liking to receive repairs with ringside manured hands, liking fat overhead supports—not an old iron hoop run over with puffer fish characteristic.
Blankets were of special significance to me, because I used to be a dangerous tightrope as a means of getting upstairs to my own house...There was no spike, nor beam.
Time, then, loses its continuity and pictures take on the motion of zip fasteners.
It was twilight as I entered the deserted central street of Liffey and I looked everywhere for a sign of investigation but the only thing I saw was that a wheel was real.
Ever since I began to ride nonchalantly over handlebars, I have been able to endure the noise of the heart in the disturbing pose of life.
Money no longer circulated in the usual way, but the sale of some noticeably useless bicycles had reminded people of its vague resemblance to the wheels of their lives.
His philosophy applied to everyday things and he would brook no argument as to the astounding secret which it contained.
There was a key in the lock from the outside and the sound of bicycles being wheeled away and the sound of my revolver being cocked. What did I, but?