To Béal Bocht

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An Béal Bocht [ ən̪ bʲeːl̪ bɔxt ] ( Irish for “the poor mouth”) is a satirical novel that the Irish writer Brian Ó Nualláin published in 1941 in Irish under the pseudonym “Myles na gCopaleen” . The English translation ( The Poor Mouth ) as well as the German edition ( Das Barmen , also published as an Irish curriculum vitae ) leads as the author "Flann O'Brien", the pseudonym under which Ó Nualláin published his four novels in English.

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Narrative situation

At Béal Bocht is supposedly the autobiography of a certain Bónapárt Ó Cunasa, edited by Myles na gCopaleen, and thus uses an editor's fiction and is thus conveyed through two narrative instances . In a foreword (dated “The Day of Lack, 1941”), Myles explains that Bónapárt wrote it himself in prison and is still there, safe from “the adversities of life”. His narrative will be reproduced unchanged in the following, "if one disregards the fact that long stretches of the original were left out for reasons of lack of space and because unsuitable topics were also reflected in it". In Bónapárt's first-person story, Myles only appears with a few editorial glosses. The third edition (published on "The Day of Fall, 1964") added Ó Nualláin alias Myles another foreword in which he alludes to the reactions the novel evoked two decades earlier.

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In nine short chapters, Bónapárt describes the first 29 years of his life in the fictional Gaeltacht Corca Dhorcha , a place where it always rains at night and mostly during the day. He only knows about his father that he is “in the harbor ”, and so he lives with his grandfather, called the “old boy” ( to Seanduine Liath ), his mother and some foul-smelling pigs like all Gael “in a little chalky white house , unhealthy house that was in a corner of the ravine ”, and like all Gael the family spends their time eating potatoes , complaining about the rain and facing the next famine and fabulous monsters like the“ Meerkater ”( cat mara ) to fear.

In the third chapter, Bónapárt describes his first and only day of school. Since he only understands Irish, he has no answer to the schoolmaster's question what his name is ( Phat is yer nam? ), He is beaten and informed that his name is "Jams O'Donell". Since this is the same for all Gaelic boys on their first day of school, most of the residents are called Corca Dhorchas Jams O'Donnell. In the meantime, this gives Bónapárt the idea that Jams O'Donell must be his father, a “real miracle worker when you consider the number of children he has”. He understands very little about the “exact circumstances of life”, but with the help of the old boy he finds a bride in the sixth chapter who “was well versed in cooking potatoes” and, to his great surprise, also becomes a father, but dies Wife and child in the same chapter, because for all Gael this is “the fate that awaits them from their first day. Great pleasure follows grief, and good weather never lasts forever. ”Only a few visitors get lost in Corca Dhorcha . In the fourth chapter, however, entire hosts of Gaedhilgeoirí ("Irish speakers") fall over the village, that is, English-speaking Irish people from the city who are enthusiastic about Gaelic ideas, and at the suggestion of the old boy organize a feis , i.e. a festival for the care of Gaelic Customs. The Gaelic lads who erected the podium that night sacrificed their lives "in the service of the Gaelic cause" because they passed away weakened after the downpours of that night, other participants starve to death at the long speeches of the dignitaries who had come from Dublin and Galway, others only drop dead during the subsequent traditional Gaelic folk dances.

The old boy’s wisdom that it’s no good not to have to go without a potato for a long time comes true in the case of Sitric Ó Sánasa, whose story is described in Chapter 7. So poor that he has to live on peat , he eventually decides to live with the seals in a grotto on the beach, where at least the fish are numerous. In the eighth chapter it rains so long without ceasing that all the potatoes are washed from the fields and the fish swim on the streets, so that Bonapart fears he will drown. Then he remembers the old Irish legend of Maoldún Ó Pónasa, who saved himself from the first flood by boat to the top of what is now called the “Hungerfeim” mountain. Bonapart climbs the mountain and meets Ó Pónasa himself there: he sits motionless in a grotto lit by a warm fire, in which streams of whiskey gush from the rock, and watches over a pot of gold. When Ó Pónasa suddenly begins to speak in Central Irish (his story is about a man who once lived in a small, chalk-white house in the corner of the ravine), Bonapart, frightened, picks up some gold and walks back to his house through the pouring rain in the corner of the canyon. Shortly thereafter, he is arrested and charged with stealing the money in a robbery. In a trial that is held in English and therefore completely incomprehensible to him, he is sentenced to 29 years in prison. On the way to prison he meets an old man who looks strangely familiar to him; When he reveals himself to be Jams O'Donell, Bónapárt realizes that it is his father, who has now been released from prison after 29 years.

literature

expenditure

  • Myles na gCopaleen: An Béal Bocht, nó, An milleánach: Droch-sgéal ar an droch-shaoghal . To Preas Náisiúnta / National Press, Baile Átha Cliath / Dublin 1941.
  • Flann O'Brien: The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life . English by Patrick C. Power. Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, London 1973. New edition: Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign IL 1996. ISBN 1564780910
  • Flann O'Brien: The Barmen. A bad story of the hard life . German by Harry Rowohlt . Suhrkamp , Frankfurt am Main 1977 (= Library Suhrkamp , vol. 529). ISBN 351801529X
  • Flann O'Brien: Irish CV. A bad story of the hard life . German by Harry Rowohlt. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-518-37486-9
  • Flann O'Brien: Irish CV. A bad story of the hard life . German by Harry Rowohlt. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-518-38686-7
  • Flann O'Brien: The Barmen. A bad story of the hard life . German by Harry Rowohlt. People and World , Berlin 1983
  • Flann O'Brien: The Barmen. A bad story of the hard life . German by Harry Rowohlt. No and no , Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-03-695132-6
  • Flann O'Brien: The Barmen. A bad story of the hard life . German by Harry Rowohlt. Heyne , Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-453-81066-2
  • Flann O'Brien: The Barmen. A bad story of the hard life . German by Harry Rowohlt. No and no, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-03-695615-2

Secondary literature

  • M. Keith Booker : Flann O'Brien, Bakhtin, and Menippean Satire . Syracuse University Press, Syracuse NY 1995. ISBN 0815626657
  • Jane Farnon: Motifs of Gaelic Lore and Literature in An Béal Bocht . In: Ann Clune and Tess Hurson (Eds.): Conjuring Complexities: Essays on Flann O'Brien . Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast 1997. pp. 89-110. ISBN 0853896755
  • Britta Irslinger: To Béal Bocht and Cruiskeen Lawn from Myles na gCopaleen: Concept and design . In: Erich Poppe (ed.): Celtology today. Topics and questions. Files from the 3rd German Celtology Symposium, Marburg, March 2001 . Nodus, Münster 2004. pp. 239-258. ISBN 3-89323-616-3
  • Declan Kiberd: Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation . Jonathan Cape, London 1995. ISBN 0224041975
  • Sarah McKibben: To Béal Bocht: Mouthing Off at National Identity . In: Éire / Ireland 38: 1-2, 2003. pp. 37-53.
  • Breandán Ó Conaire: Myles na Gaeilge: Lámhleabhar ar Shaothar Ghaeilge Bhrian Ó Nualláin . To Clóchomhar Tta, Baile Átha Cliath 1986.
  • Brian Ó Conchubhair: An Béal Bocht and An tOileánach: Writing on the Margin-Gaelic Glosses or Postmodern Marginalia? In: Review of Contemporary Fiction 31: 3, 2011. pp. 191-204.
  • Thierry Robin: Satire et enfermement in "The Poor Mouth" by Flann O'Brien . In: Les Cahiers du CEIMA 6, 2010. pp. 99-118.
  • Carol Taaffe: Ireland through the Looking-Glass: Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen and Irish Cultural Debate . Cork University Press, Cork 2008. ISBN 1859184421
  • Iwan Wmffre: An Béal Bocht: A Critique of Irish Nationalism, Irish-language Literature and the People of the Gaeltacht? In: Jan Erik Rekdal and Ailbhe Ó Corráin (eds.): Proceedings of the Eighth Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica . Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala 2007, pp. 275-284. ISBN 978-91-554-7049-4
  • Donna I. Wong: Following the Law of the Letter: Myles na gCopaleen's An Béal Bocht . In: New Hibernia Review / Iris Éirean nach Nua 4: 3, 2000. pp. 93-106.