The Poor Mouth

The Poor Mouth relates the story of one Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents. Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs. A scathing satire on the Irish, this work brought down on the author's head the full wrath of those who saw themselves as the custodians of Irish language and tradition when it was first published in Gaelic in 1941.

"I discovered Flann O'Brien's The Poor Mouth during my senior year in college. At the same time, I was studying Gaelic history and feeling very self-righteous about my Irish-American heritage. As a 'born-again Irishman,' The Poor Mouth sent me into fits of giddiness. O'Brien's talent for finding humor in the doom and despair of the Irish mindset is a marvel and a joy. It's as if Yeats joined the Firesign Theatre. As the book's narrator points out so often, I do not think we shall ever hear from his like again." (James Finn Garner, author of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories)

"The Poor Mouth shows a comic genius working close to his best capability. Humor of this quality, this intensity, is very rare; as witty in its language as in its invention, it cries to be read aloud." (Newsweek)

"The Poor Mouth is wildly funny, but there is at the same time always a sense of black evil. Only O'Brien's genius, of all the writers I can think of, was capable of that mixture of qualities." (London Evening Standard)

"Patrick C. Power has performed sorcery in translating a work so specific in its allusions and exotic in its language. Again and again, so consistently that we come to take it for granted, Mr. Power re-creates Gaelic music in English." (John Updike, New Yorker)

"O'Brien was one of the comic geniuses of the 20th century. . . . The Poor Mouth is wildly funny and Steadman's drawings catch the spirit." (Boston Globe)