The Poor Mouth (An Béal Bocht): A bad story about the hard life edited by Myles na
Gopaleen
Translated by Séamus Ennis
Originally published in Irish in 1941, this novel casts a satirical eye on both Irishry and the then fashionable Gaelic Revival Movement.
The Editor is in fact, the author (Flann O’Brien) using one of his pseudonyms. The novel is mocking the works of Peig Sayers or
Máire.
The repetition of and importance given to such terms as ‘hard times’, ‘poverty’ and ‘drunkenness’ combined with the ever-present
‘downpour’, ‘eternity’ and ‘potatoes’ are indicative of an attitude to life where the Irish were deemed to have a monopoly on hardship!
Readers familiar with Raymond Queneau will find Myles’ style familiar.
Marjory Sliney,
Fingal County Libraries.
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