Um clássico do surrealismo irlandês - e também uma revisitação absolutamente louca do folklore da Irlanda.

from the bookcover:
"flann o'brien's first novel is a brilliant impressionistic jumble of ideas, mythology and nonsense. the story operates on many levels incorporating plots within plots, giving full rein to o'brien's dancing intellect and celtic wit. the undergraduate narrator lives with his uncle in dublin, drinks too much with his friends and invents stories peopled with hilarious and unlikely characters, one of whom, in a typical o'brien conundrum, invents a means by which women can give birth to full-grown people."

members of the bookring:

1. mytilusgirl(uk)
2. hobbs1(uk)
3. gersom (porto)
4. terpsicore (lisboa)
5. amostrinha (lisboa)
6. letra (lisboa)
7. MPD (montijo)
8. witchie (porto, portugal)
9. eu (lisboa)

Released on Monday, November 10, 2003 at mailed to another bookcrosser in Lisboa, lisboa Portugal.

posted today to mytilusgirl, in england.

Just returned from a fortnight elsewhere to find (to my delight) this book in my pigeon hole.

I'll be starting this book tonight...

Hmmmm. I could see what the book was trying to do, but rather than delight me, it merely annoyed me. Perhaps I wasn't in the "right" mood.

I hope the next reader enjoys this more than myself!

Book sent to Hobbs1 today.

Arrived in the post today - looking forward to reading it as there seems to be mixed comments so far. Thanks mytilusgirl.

Found this one really difficult to get into, perhaps because i tried to read it over christmas! The writng style didn't grab me and seemed more and more to get on my nerves, it seemed to be "over written". I'm afraid i didn't finish it a nd posted it onto Chrisp93 yesterday - hope you have more sucess with it!

Following some chat about this book on BookCrossingUK, I was offered it by Hobbs1, and I accepted, not realising it was a bookring.

It arrived about four days ago and as soon as I went to journal it, I realised that it was a bookring, with lots of other people waiting to read it. So I read it too fast and failed to appreciate the many levels of meaning in it. It is a very complex book. I was worried that I should not keep it too long.

It's a very hard book to read, with so many references to Irish mythology, nonsense, satire, fantasy, etc.

Although first published in 1939, I'm going to state that it might well be the earliest "hypertext novel". You'll see what I mean when you come to read it!

I'm now sending it to gersom in Portugal, but at some point I shall try to find another copy in a charity shop: I want to re-read it in less of a hurry. I'm also planning to obtain a reference book about Irish mythology, to enable me to take more of O'Brien's text on board. There is so much in this book that completely escaped me, not least the linguistic variations in the English spoken by the Irish characters.

Thank you, mfa, for making it available as a bookring.


Update: 4 February 2004

This book is now going to terpsicore in Portugal as no reply was received to the messages I sent gersom. I hope terpsicore gets more out of it than I did, although I was pleased to have had the chance of reading it.

I came back from a short holliday to find this book in the mail.I will read it as soon as possile.
Thanks,Chrisp93!

I give up!I've been trying these last months to read the last 30 pages and it seems to be an impossible task.
It was a very hard,thogh enjoyable read.I don't have refences enough to fully apreciate it.Anyway it made me curious about Flann O'Brienn and I started looking up Irish mythology.And I really enjoyed the biographical part of the book.
Will be passed tonight to amostrinha during her farewell dinner.

It seems this book does not want to leave me :).the dinner was cancelled so I could not give it to Amostrinha.Maybe we'll see each other this weekend...

Amostrinha asked to be skipped so I mailed today to letra

Thank you Terpsicore. I promise to read this ASAP.