Best of Myles

by Flann O'Brien

  The Editor: Hey, stop! Have you gone off your head?

  Myself: I was only going to give one name. Just a small one. One that you know and that I know. Sure what harm would that be? Everybody knows it. It would only mean £800 and costs. And think of the reputation we would win for outspokenness, courage, fearlessness, honesty, and so on. ‘The Paper That Cannot Be Gagged.’ Indeed, damages might only be a nominal farthing. It was held by Pallas C.B. that—

  The Editor: For heaven’s sake, man, have a little sense. If you attempt to put any name down I will scratch it out again.

  Myself: O all right, you’re the boss.

  IN DUBLIN’S College Green (Excuse me. In Dublin’s bus-humming pedestrian-jostling grey-colonnaded College Green) I met a poor man who was a stranger to these parts and who asked me to direct him somewhere. I did so with pleasure or at least with something that was meant to look like it. Then he pointed to a big building and said what’s that. I said that’s the Bank of Ireland. He said what do they be doing in there. Well, I said, banks lend money, you know. He looked wistfully at the Old House and said I wonder would they lend me ten bob. Why not try I said. Begor I think I will, he answered, a yellowish suffusion of worthless diluted blood mounting through his second-hand face, a symbol that the last thing to die in each of us is hope. Grey carrion soul-mincing hope, the one quality above all others that makes the human creature ridiculous and pathetic.

  I left him, hoping he would drop dead. ‘Yesterday, an unknown man …’

  ERWOOD STANDARD TYPEWR. Reason that out. It’s before me on my desk as I write. (That’s a phrase you often see in travel books—the jewelled and beaded purse of Stevenson, picked up for a few dhraksi in a junk shop in Samoa, if you could believe the boastful swine; before him on his desk as he writes. Can anybody write at anything but a desk?) But get back to this ERWOOD STANDARD TYPEWR. It’s all along the top of my machine in golden letters. Do you get it? My flying thumb, sweeping up a million times a year to whip back the carriage, has erased the last four letters of TYPEWR. The equally active other thumb, darting and re-darting to click the roller round, has wiped out the UND. There’s an explanation for everything old boy.

  It’s fairly obvious I haven’t much to say today. Sow what? Sow wheat. Ah-ha, the old sow-faced cod, the funny man, clicking out his dreary blob of mirthless trash. The crude grub-glutted muck-shuffler slumped on his hack-chair, lolling his dead syrup eyes through other people’s books to lift some lousy joke. English today, have to be a bit careful, can’t get away with murder so easily in English. Observe the grey pudgy hand faltering upon the type-keys. That is clearly the hand of a man that puts the gut number one. Not much self-sacrifice there. Yes but he has a conscience, remember. He has a conscience. He does not feel too well today. He casts bleared cataractic (Gk. katarrhaktes) sub-glances over his past self. Why am I here? I want a straight answer that can be subjected to intellectual criteria. No, I know what you were going to say, you won’t put me off with that. Why is this man here? What for? Eats four fat meals a day, Wears clothes. Sleeps at night. Overpaid for incompetent work. Kept on out of pity for wife. Is worried. Ho ho. Feels dissatisfied with himself. Feels ought to be doing something. Feels … wrong. Not fulfilling duties of station in life. How often is the little finger raised per diem? Feels … dirty. Incapable of writing short bright well-constructed newspaper article, notwithstanding fact editors only too anxious print and pay for suitable articles, know man who took course Birmingham School of Journalism now earns 12,000 pounds in spare time. If you can write a letter you can write articles for newspapers. Editors waiting. Payment at the rate of one guinea per thousand words. Always enclose stamped envelope for return if unsuitable. Importance of neat typing. ERWOOD STANDARD TYPEWR. Editors have not time to study decipher puzzle out illegible scrawls on both sides of paper. Covering note not essential. But if desired brief courteous note saying take liberty of submitting for consideration literary article on how spent summer holidays. Or the humours of stamp collecting.

  Remember once being stuffed in hot German train (before present war, of course), O a long time ago, forget what year it was, maybe ’33 or ’34. Courteous offizier present rauching long cheroot. Me, pointing out window: Bitte, ist das der Donau? Kolonel-major mit merry gold-dented smile: Nein, nein, das ist die Donau. Then the red hot bubbly blush.*

  Print is one extreme of typographical development, the other being mathematical notation. It consists, in the occident anyway, of the representation of sounds by purely arbitrary shapes, and arranging them so that those in the know can reproduce the spoken words intended. This process is known as Reading, and is very uncommon in adults. It is uncommon because, firstly, it is in many cases frankly impossible, the number of phonetic symbols being inadequate; secondly, because of the extreme familiarity of the word-shapes to a population whose experience is necessarily derived in the main from marks printed on paper. It is in this second circumstances, familiarity with the word or phrase shapes, that has led to the unpremeditated birth of a visual language.

  Now, you (yes, YOU) before you tear this paper into little bits, kindly tell me whether that last paragraph was written by me as part of my satanic campaign against decency and reason or whether it is taken from a book written in all seriousness by some other person. On your answer to that query will depend more than I would care to say in public.

  Mister Quidnunc is even more stimulating today than usual. Turn to his little corner and have the time of your life.

  THERE IS a lot of talk nowadays about repatriating our foreign acids. The agitation has my heartiest support. I have a tank of citric acid standing in Lisbon for the past two years, but so far I have been denied shipping space. The tank is on the quays, and is being depleted seriously by the inroads of marmalade-loving lascars, who loot oranges and sugar from other sources and then must have some of my citric acid to complete their yellow palate-corroding brew.

  Lavoisier, incidentally, took the view that acids were binary oxygenated compounds, and that the associated water was an extraneous passive ‘element’, which served merely as a solvent. He was really the daddy of the absurd theory that all acids are monobasic. An ancestor of my own (who landed at Killala when Ireland called and at a time when it was neither profitable nor popular) was all for the theory of polybasicity, and proved his point in the teeth of scurrilous opposition from Lavoisier and butties like Guy-Lussac and Gmelin, who were no better. That was a long time ago, of course.

  I read that Ireland’s acids in England are valued at £300,000,000. They are mostly organic acids of the carboxyl group, but we have several tanks of malonic and succinic acids and many thousands of cans of miscellaneous acids where the intrusion of carbon atoms (no doubt the work of persons who have no love for Ireland) makes classification according to empirical molecular formulae out of the question. How this vast accumulation of bitterness can be transported to this country after the war, or what possible use we would have for it, I cannot imagine.

  The Plain People of Ireland: You’re right there, we have enough bitterness in this country.

  Myself: We have bedad.

  The Plain People of Ireland: But of course the sulphuric is very handy for the batteries.

  Myself: Aye indeed.

  ME AND MY SOUL

  This dripped off my assembly belt the other night (when I could have sworn I had the machines turned off for the night). Print it on barley-fudged crême-primed Hungarian sub-paper in good, old 12-point Gracatia Sancta and next thing you know I will have hair on my face and I will perceive indubitably Marxian strata in the subconscious, suggesting that all irrational impulses etc. etc. etc.

  the antic soul

  rides the wry, red brain;

  horses know horses know

  what they’re thinking about

  (you might say curse that alien corn),

  the bloody heart

  lusts in its foul tenement

  o blow, viaticum pump, blow

  on your last
glazed fruit-valves.

  RECIPE

  Stuff the breast of the chicken with some of the sausage meat. Place the sugar thermometer in the syrup while it is boiling. Withdraw the pan from the burner as soon as the correct temperature has been reached. Wash the sago. Mix the cornflour into a paste with some of the cold milk. Fill with prepared paste, using either a hot knife or a forcing pipe. Transfer to a tin lined with greased paper and bake for 1 hr. 45 minutes with the Regulo at Mark 4. Mix and turn out on a floured board, shape into cutlets, coat with the egg and bread crumbs and fry in hot fat for the rest of your natural.

  WALKING the other day through Dublin’s motorcar-denuded pinknailed-damsel-crowded O’Connell street (the broadest thoroughfare in Europe remember) I noticed with a start that the Bank of Ireland’s office is surmounted by the motto BONA FIDES REIPUBLICAE STABILITAS. In plain English, this means, ‘Bona fides* are the standby of the State’. Mark that. Not merely are those nocturnal beerswillers and liquorslobberers worthy people, valuable citizens, delightful souls that one likes to know: they are the backbone and the be-all of all we mean by ‘Ireland’. By their existence they make possible our existence as an independent state. They are a sort of elated élite, a hiccup-shaken Herrenvolk. That’s what the Bank of Ireland says.

  What then is the reason for this? Most of us pay the State a lot of money in direct taxation in the course of our daily struggle to preserve life and reach our beds once more intact—threepence on this and twopence on that. But your bona-fide, who also does the same, is only starting out on his grandiose tasks of tax-paying when the rest of us are going to bed. He will journey into the wilds on the bitterest night, spend the still watches far from the snug company of wife and child and journey back in the dawn bereft of speech and money but gloriously distended with all that is best and excisable in Irish life. Sixty tax-bearing cigarettes have made the wind rattle in his scorched neck like a crow caught in a chimney; the dry barren husk of old disused drink loiters loathsomely through his haggard entrails; he has lost his cheque-book and a button has been wrenched from his coat: but he is happy, he has made a daring bid to maintain the Supply Services and has not scrupled to face poverty, ill-health and dishonour that the Central Fund might be saved.

  Yes, life is like that. You never know who is saving your bacon behind your back, you never think. Who will send me subscriptions for the erection of a statue in O’Connell street to The Unknown Traveller? Let his back be turned politely to Father Mathew and brave unflinching eyes turned towards the Swords Road and all the havens of sweet snug-bound far-niente which that way lie.

  MARGINAL COMMENT

  And talking of the Bank of Ireland, I came across the other day a copy of the Report of the Banking Commission. The Majority Report was annotated here and there marginally by an unknown hand in the following terms:

  Paragraph 25 is tendentious rubbish.

  Paragraph 21 is muck.

  No.

  Senile decay.

  What about the advances to farmers in the years 1920–21?

  Where???

  ‘Normal times’ have no relevance to ‘the problem of liquidity’, even if it be granted that the problem exists at all.

  Ye Gods!

  Oh Yeah!

  Blah!

  Tautology.

  All very simple.

  What about the deposits created by the banks to be lent to people in whose names they are created?

  CATECLICHM

  (At a time when) (our ever-dwindling fuel supplies) (bid fair) (to write finis) (to the most valiant efforts) (of the powers that be) (to maintain efficient transport services) (no words that I can say seem strong enough) (to express my abhorrence) (of ignorant fuel-wasting full-regulator men).

  THIS IS AWFUL, I MEAN

  I am having serious trouble in the management of my slum property. Penal legislation has made us landlords responsible for major repairs and sanitation, even if our tenants spend their spare time deliberately tearing our tenements to bits and trying to burn the bits in our own grates (and very expensive modern Hammond Lane jobs some of them are, installed in 1936 regardless of expense). My point is this. Supposing one of my gables develops a bulge. My tenant (who does not know his prayers but could recite the entire Landlord and Tenant Act for you without once drawing breath) flies off to the Corporation and makes his due statutory whine. Next thing I know I have a notice slapped in on me, whereas and unless, I send for my handyman and tell him to square up this bulge and see about doing some plastering and pointing and so forth. Then after a day or two an inspector from the Corporation turns up when I happen to be having a look at what my handyman has done—a perfect job, as a matter of fact, as good as new. The inspector picks his teeth and squints up at the gable. Then he puts his nail on the plaster and begins to scrape. Then he begins to tap here and there with his cheap folding pocket rule. Then scarcely without a glance at me he says:

  ALL THAT’LL HAVE TO COME DOWN.

  I get as pale as a ghost and tell him to listen here, that the job cost me twenty-five pounds and that I can produce the contractor’s bill. The inspector is in the middle of a new slit-eyed squint and without turning his head says:

  THAT’LL ALL HAVE TO COME DOWN THAT’S ALL THERE’S TO IT IT’LL ALL HAVE TO COME DOWN THE WHOLE LOT’LL HAVE TO BE TAKEN DOWN.

  I stutter some thing about seeing further about it and having no intention of being robbed and bested by any inspector after landing out twenty-five good-looking pounds to a well-known and respected firm of building contractors. But the voice comes again:

  THE WHOLE LOT’LL HAVE TO COME DOWN I’M SORRY BUT THAT IS ALL THERE IS TO IT THAT’LL ALL HAVE TO BE TAKEN DOWN.

  I ask you.

  TWO THINGS are required remember for a tryst, rendezvous or appointment. It is necessary to specify (a) time, and (b) place. Let me make my meaning clear. I want to avoid all ambiguity. Supposing I tell some girl or other that I will meet her at 8.30 p.m., thus specifying (a) but not (b). What happens? She turns up promptly enough at, say, the house where Dean Swift was born in Hoey’s Court. But in the meantime I am waiting patiently in the Bull Ring, Wexford, listlessly inhaling fag after fag. Result: we fail to meet and letters of passionate recrimination are on their way in the next post.

  Now let us turn from that and take the opposite case. I tell the lady to meet me outside the picture house in Skerries. Please note that in this case we are ignoring (a). She turns up at 1.18 p.m., waits for an hour and flounces off in a huff. I, however, (connoisseur of clichés that I am) put in that odd thing—an appearance—at 4.53 p.m. Again I produce the box of fags and embark on another of my lengthy incinerations. People passing say: I wonder who your man is waiting for. Your man has been standing there for an hour. Your man is up to something, that’s a certainty.

  See my point? The appointment is again broken, simply because we neglected to provide for both (a) and (b). Next time your girl fails to turn up, ask yourself whether you have followed the simple rule I have outlined.

  The Royal M. na G. Institute of Archaeology

  WE LIVE in strange times. It can now be revealed that there has been in existence for the past year (notwithstanding anything that may be contained in the Offences against the State Act) a body known as the Royal Myles na gCopaleen Institute of Archaeology (and you can bet your life that the latter term embraces Palaeontology, Eolithic, Palaeolithic and Neolithic Anthropology). Some months ago this body sent an expedition to Corca Dorcha (or Corkadorky), the most remote Gaeltacht area in Ireland or anywhere else. Violent excavations have been in progress since, and preliminary reports which are reaching Dublin from the explorers indicate that discoveries are being made which may mean the end of civilisation as we know it; and the end, too, of all our conventional concepts of human, social, artistic, geological and vegetable evolution. If these messages are to be believed, the Corkadorky researches will throw again into the melting pot the whole sad mess of Tertiary Man, Sir Joseph Prestwich’s theory of the essential
ly pleistocene palaeolithic character of the Kent ‘plateau-gravels’, Stonehenge, the glacier theories, the ‘proofs’ of European neolithic eskimo stratigraphs, and even show that the gigantic mammalian skeletons which are honourably housed in our museums are fakes of the first order, perpetrated by ‘Irish’ Iberian flint-snouted morons (c. 6,000 B.C.) who practised the queer inverted craft of devising posterity’s antiquities.

  Local observers are hourly awaiting the emergence of the Corkadorky Man, who is expected to prove himself the daddy of every other Man ever pupped by scholarly dirt-shovellers. Unlicensed short-wave radio transmitters are standing by to flash the news to the learned societies of the world. Herr Hoernes, the famous author of Der diluviale Mensch in Europa, is maintaining a 24-hour watch at the earphones in Stockholm with M. Mortillet, whose Le Préhistorique is still read.

  A word about this Royal Myles na gCopaleen Institute of Archaeology. There is some mystery about the ‘Royal’, many commentators holding that the term has reference to the bar of a certain theatre where it is alleged the first meeting was held and the learned objects of the Institute defined. Be that as it may, it would be rash to suppose that the Institute is just a gatherum of clay-minded prodnoses. Every branch of research has a sub-institute of its own and the heavily documented reports of each sub-institute are appraised, co-ordinated, catalogued, sifted, indexed, cross-referenced, revised, checked and digested by the ‘Royal Institute’, which is essentially an assessive, deductive and archivistic body. Within the ‘Royal Institute’ you have, for instance, the Institute of Comparative Bronzes. This body is concerned only with time-bronze progressions (mostly based on millennial variations in the obliquity of the earth’s orbit) and has already disproved practically every thing that has appeared in L’Anthropologie: Matériaux pour l’histoire primitive de l’homme, the somewhat inexact French publication. Then again you have the Association of Superior Muck. This body is composed of chemists who spend their time surveying the testing samples of alluvial muck and all manner of water-borne ordure. All this goes to show that the researches now in progress have no relation to scare journalism, ‘all that is best in Irish life’, ‘progress’, or any other shibboleth. It is an exercise in scientific discovery and deduction. There is no margin for emotion, conjecture or error. That is why Herr Hoernes stays up all night in Stockholm.