“An Irishman’s heart is nothing but his imagination.”
[Today’s blog post is a four-peat of one about Irish writers—celebrating St. Paddy’s Day, of course! Somehow, I missed this last year. Irish men and women have migrated to the far corners of the Earth. Some have migrated back. Some stayed home. They have suffered the boom and bust of late 20th and early 21st century economics. Their Church scandals involving priests and choirboys, and unwed mothers and evil nuns, have made ours in the U.S. seem minor, yet Ireland is still the most Catholic country in Europe. The Irish, above all, are resilient. Their writers reflect this resiliency.]
St. Patrick’s Day is March 17. There’s controversy in NYC because the new mayor won’t march along with the anti-gay Hibernian hoofers—he’ll march in an “alternative parade.” Of course, I’ll remind the loyal Hibernians that one of their greatest writers, Oscar Wilde, was gay and persecuted by the English, no less, and an apt hero for all Irish—at least, Irish writers. The whole thing is a storm in a teacup and shows how uptight and immature America is—in Dublin, no one worries about who marches in the parade. So, before I forget, I thought today was a perfect day to set the record straight: many great writers in the English language that you may have heard about are not English but Irish. And I should add, hailing from old Eire too, just like Wilde.
The title quote is by George Bernard Shaw—an acerbic, old curmudgeon who successfully rankled British aristocracy. His plays and other writings poked fun at the English establishment, a commendable thing to do even today—if you can get away with it. His biting wit transferred easily into words on the page and probably embarrassed everyone from royalty on down. On the other hand, the endurance of his work over the years is proof of its quality—it’s classic literature in the English language written by an Irishman.
I prefer and admire Irish satirists. It’s devilishly difficult to write satire and not recommended for writers that don’t have a world of experience behind them and mastery of their trade. I’m not good at it, although the readers of this blog know I sometimes try. To be certain, my novels have satirical elements—for example, the Wall Street economics expert John Galt in The Midas Bomb, who probably wouldn’t amuse anyone in the Rand Paul family—but I’m not bold enough to write an entire satirical book or play. Shaw was so bold. So was Jonathan Swift. His stories about the travels of Gulliver poke fun at many of society’s conventions, not to mention British royalty and militarism.
Swift was probably an ET, not Irish, but he certainly adopted Ireland. I claim he was an alien because in his description of Mars he creates two tiny Martian moons, in effect, predicting the existence of Deimos and Phobos before anyone on Earth could see them by telescope. How did he do that? Coincidence? I think not. He said, “Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” Pithy, and a satirical statement all by itself.
Another satirist of different stripes is the aforementioned Oscar Wilde. His plays have seen a recent resurgence (my favorite, The Importance of Being Ernest, was again on Broadway), even in film, but this man suffered greatly at the hands of the British. Unlike all the Jane Austen resurgence (one of the most boring writers of the 19th century), Wilde’s pokes in the eyes of upper crust Brits were enough for them to persecute him. He died in prison for being a homosexual. Considering that our American fundamentalist preachers were in Uganda fomenting support for a law that would make homosexuality a crime punishable by death, I guess I cannot be too hard on British of the 19th Century Victorian era. Following the lead of their prudish Queen, homophobia was probably the in-thing to do at the time. (I don’t know what the excuse was for the preachers in Uganda. Or, the government of Nigeria. Or, NYC’s parade organizers. Uncomfortable with their own sexuality?)
Irish poets, satirists or otherwise, are probably better known to American high school and college students. While other Irish writers are censored or simply ignored, probably for their critical writings against British establishment as much as any salacious content, poets seem to be better received by our super-conservative school boards. I read W. B. Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan” in high school and knew immediately the poet was talking about rape, but somehow that got by the censors. Or, the teachers simply didn’t understand the poem.
Yeats was not without his satire. Reportedly, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (the place name is pronounced Innishfree) was written because the poet was miffed that Thoreau’s Walden was so bad that it put him to sleep. Because my sentiments about Walden echo these, I’m inclined to believe the report. How our environmental movement can hold Thoreau up as a hero is beyond me—he almost singlehandedly burned down Walden woods, for example, even though they were just a short distance from his home. (Pedro Huertas, an erudite Mexican cartel member, expresses this opinion in my Angels Need Not Apply—sometimes characters, even villains, agree with their authors.)
Yeats receives fame for something beyond writing too: he was instrumental in the creation of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. This theater is still active. When I was in Dublin, I went to see a play there. Always known for avant garde plays since its creation, the play I saw would not have made it past the pseudo-liberal but Puritan-spirited crowds that frequent Broadway and off-Broadway playhouses in New York City. Even liberal NYC theater-goers would be shocked, if not rioting in the aisles. If I remember correctly, it was set in 12th century northern Ireland and was the story of one king’s (aka tribal chieftain) duplicity in conquering another, including rape, sodomy, and incest. The crowd seemed to take it in stride but the woman at the ticket office warned us beforehand, and she was right. So much for Irish Catholic conservatism.
Let me continue the list of great Irish writers people often confuse with English: John Millington Synge, Flann O’Brien, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh, James Joyce, Sean O’Casey—this list is only partial. Knowing a thing or two about Irish names, it’s amusing that some of these are confused for English, but there you have it. (If I’m missing your favorite writer, mention him in a comment to this post.) James Joyce is probably the most famous of these. I’ll have to admit I’ve started but never finished Ulysses. Everyone says he’s a genius—I just can’t get through it. Whip me with a copy of Pygmalion, but my only fond memories of this English (better said, Irish) classic are found in the origin of names for elementary particles, the quarks.
Many great works of literature are banned from our high school reading lists—Irish writers have especially been hit hard by this because their works are often critical or satirical exposes of society’s foibles. I don’t know if he or she was an Irish writer who said that if you don’t piss someone off, your writing is wasted, but you can imagine an Irish writer saying that. Entertaining literature should piss someone off and Irish prose and poetry often does. That’s too bad because they write in a language that translates well (satire intended). Fortunately, years of violent history under the jackboots of the British hegemony did not stop them from writing. Maybe it even spurred them on.
One of our great American writers, Sinclair Lewis, said it best: “It is impossible to discourage the real writers—they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.” I don’t know if Lewis was of English or Irish heritage, but he sums up what writers, especially Irish writers, have known for centuries: the pen really is mightier than the sword, and it’s a writer’s job to wield it.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
