Per fortuna che O’Brien ci avverte che la serieta’ non e’ poi del tutto seria.

Attraverso gli occhiali della maschera, Mick vedeva Teague McGettigan immerso nella lettura della prima edizione del giornale, aperto in fondo, alla pagina delle corse. Ecco un uomo in pace con se stesso, senza il minimo interesse per le cose sovrannaturali. Un uomo, forse, da invidiare.
(42)

“Il risultato lordo e netto e’ che le persone che passano la maggior parte della loro vita naturale a pedalare su biciclette di ferro sopra le strade sassose di questa parrocchia finiscono per avere la loro personalita’ mischiata con la personalita’ della bicicletta, per effetto dell’interscambio delle mollicole di ciascuno dei due, e voi non immaginate nemmeno la quantita’ di gente delle zone rurali che e’ quasi meta’ persona e meta’ bicicletta”.
(102)

“E l’idea sarebbe?”.
“Niente di speciale; proporro’ che il signor Byrne (ossia James Joyce) sia assunto ufficialmente nel personale di servizio come responsabile della manutenzione e riparazione della biancheria intima dei Padri in tutti gli istituti di Dublino”.
(236)
( )

Plenty funny for the first sixty or so pages, then sort of peters out. The James Joyce joke falls dead flat, though Ralph Steadman apparently thought it clever enough to portray on the cover. ( )

Every O'Brien novel I've read has been really funny, and The Dalkey Archive is no different. The book centers around Mick and his struggles: him and his friend Hackett's interactions with the mad scientist De Selby; his efforts to help James Joyce join the Jesuits; and his arms-length relationship with his girlfriend Mary. While it somewhat recycles a few plot elements of The Third Policeman (the De Selby character, policemen on bicycles), as well as the literary playfulness of At Swim-Two-Birds (James Joyce is a character suspected of not having written his own novels and desirous of becoming a priest), it has its own identity in the protagonist's struggles with religion and relationships. But irreverence is paramount, and aided by some of the most continuous drinking I've ever seen in a novel, O'Brien makes fun of Ireland, the Church, authorship, and just about everything else.

The De Selby plotline is the one I enjoyed the most. I could probably read about the "Mollycule Theory" forever:

"Every­thing is composed of small mollycules of itself and they are flying around in concentric circles and arcs and segments and innumerable various other routes too numerous to mention collectively, never standing still or resting but spinning away and darting hither and thither and back again, all the time on the go. Do you follow me intelligently? Mollycules? ... The gross and net result of it is that people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky road­steads of the parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycles as a result of the interchanging of the mollycules of each of them, and you would be surprised at the number of people in country parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles.... And you would be unutterably flibbergasted if you knew the number of stout bicycles that partake serenely of humanity."

Never mind that De Selby is attempting to destroy the world with DMP, a lethal substance which also has the property of allowing conversation with important Christian religious figures. Mick and Hackett try some out, scuba diving along with De Selby to have an enlightening conversation with no less a personage than Saint Augustine. Much like in The Third Policeman, our hero plots a mission to retrieve the fatal supply, though not before using the theologically troubling revelations to engage in further barroom debate over Judas, the merits of various theologians, and other doctrinal disputes: is the bicycle/man duality similar to that between God and Jesus?

Probably the most important portions of the novel from a "literary" perspective are those of Joyce. Reams of analyses have been written about the most influential author in Irish history, but O'Brien's personal attitude toward Joyce is nowhere near as deferential as Brahms' artistic intimidation by his own famous predecessor, that "To follow in Beethoven's footsteps transcends one's strength". Mick's response to a question about why he wants to meet Joyce brings him firmly down to earth:

"I believe the picture of himself he has conveyed in his writings is fallacious. I believe he must be a far better man or a far worse. I think I have read all his works, though I admit I did not properly persevere with his play-writing. I consider his poetry meretricious and mannered. But I have an admiration for all his other work, for his dexterity and resource in handling language, for his precision, for his subtlety in conveying the image of Dublin and her people, for his accuracy in setting down speech authentically, and for his enormous humour."

In real life O'Brien was a famously under-achieving figure. That he makes Joyce a central figure, especially one who wants to join the Jesuits but is assigned the task of "in charge of the maintenance and repair of the Fathers' underclothes in all the Dublin residential establishments" is his own way of poking fun at the legends of literature, even as he pokes gentle fun at the trappings of religion. The Joyce character's ignorance of his fame, or even of authorship of his own works, is an interesting commentary on the unreality of fame to the famous, as well as a jab at Irish over-humility. Though Mick's eventual reconciliation and marriage to his pregnant girlfriend Mary is as serious an ending for an O'Brien protagonist as you'll find, I think his playful attitude towards life is best summed up by a limerick Hackett recites on learning that Mick has delusions of becoming a monk:

"There was a young monk of La Trappe
Who contracted a dose of the clap,
He said Dominus Vobiscum,
Oh why can't my piss come
There's something gone wrong with my... tap." ( )

Sometimes I start books on a dare. I think that the book is going to be inaccessible because the author has a reputation. I chose this one sort of at random, because I had heard many good things about 'At Swim Two Birds'. Later I found out that 'The Third Policeman' had many of the same themes as this book.

I enjoyed this book from the very beginning. It had a great sense of humour and it was quite surreal. Eventually I did go on to read the other two books mentioned, but I did not enjoy them as much as this one. ( )

I am not sure what I'm reading and the vernacular is strange.
But each time I pick up the Archive I fall right into the story. I am enjoying it but certain that I am not getting it.