https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-various-lives-of-keats-and-chapman-including...

I had read this as a teenager, which I went through my Flann O’Brien phase, and approached re-reading it with some trepidation; would the Suck Fairy have visited this collection of excruciating puns based around a totally fictional friendship between John Keats (1795-1821) and George Chapman (1559-1634)?

I’m afraid so. I am sure that over the table in a bar, Flann O’Brien would have told these with gusto, his face barely twitching as he reached the end and his friends collapsed with hilarity. But culture has moved on since his time, especially in Ireland, and a lot of the stories are laboured journeys to an uninspiring punchline. Here is one of the less aged ones:

[start]

One winter’s evening Keats looked up to find Chapman regarding him closely. He naturally enquired the reason for this scrutiny.

‘I was thinking about those warts on your face,’ Chapman said. ‘

What about them?’ the poet said testily. ‘

Oh, nothing,’ Chapman said. ‘It just occurred to me that you might like to have them removed.’

‘They are there for years,’ Keats said, ‘and I don’t see any particular reason for getting worried about them now.’

‘But they are rather a blemish,’ Chapman persisted. ‘I wouldn’t mind one – but four fairly close together, that’s rather—’

‘Four?’ Keats cried. ‘There were only three there this morning!’

‘There are four there now,’ Chapman said.

‘That’s a new one on me,’ Keats said.

[end]

You see what I mean?

The book also includes the script of Eamon Morrissey’s one-man show based on O’Brien’s work, “The Brother”, where the punchline is that although many claim to have died for Ireland, the barman was born for Ireland (in that his mother distracted a hostile British soldier at just the right moment to save the narrator). It’s a cringeworthy set-up, but it also sparks the interesting thought that there has been very little writing about gender-based violence during the Irish conflicts of the early 1920s. Can there really have been none at all?

This is minor stuff compared with The Third Policeman or At Swim-Two-Birds.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-various-lives-of-keats-and-chapman-including...

I had read this as a teenager, which I went through my Flann O’Brien phase, and approached re-reading it with some trepidation; would the Suck Fairy have visited this collection of excruciating puns based around a totally fictional friendship between John Keats (1795-1821) and George Chapman (1559-1634)?

I’m afraid so. I am sure that over the table in a bar, Flann O’Brien would have told these with gusto, his face barely twitching as he reached the end and his friends collapsed with hilarity. But culture has moved on since his time, especially in Ireland, and a lot of the stories are laboured journeys to an uninspiring punchline. Here is one of the less aged ones:

[start]

One winter’s evening Keats looked up to find Chapman regarding him closely. He naturally enquired the reason for this scrutiny.

‘I was thinking about those warts on your face,’ Chapman said. ‘

What about them?’ the poet said testily. ‘

Oh, nothing,’ Chapman said. ‘It just occurred to me that you might like to have them removed.’

‘They are there for years,’ Keats said, ‘and I don’t see any particular reason for getting worried about them now.’

‘But they are rather a blemish,’ Chapman persisted. ‘I wouldn’t mind one – but four fairly close together, that’s rather—’

‘Four?’ Keats cried. ‘There were only three there this morning!’

‘There are four there now,’ Chapman said.

‘That’s a new one on me,’ Keats said.

[end]

You see what I mean?

The book also includes the script of Eamon Morrissey’s one-man show based on O’Brien’s work, “The Brother”, where the punchline is that although many claim to have died for Ireland, the barman was born for Ireland (in that his mother distracted a hostile British soldier at just the right moment to save the narrator). It’s a cringeworthy set-up, but it also sparks the interesting thought that there has been very little writing about gender-based violence during the Irish conflicts of the early 1920s. Can there really have been none at all?

This is minor stuff compared with The Third Policeman or At Swim-Two-Birds. ( )

I'll admit - to me, some of these puns make no sense whatsoever. ( )

Hilarische verhalen, cursiefjes, zkv's zo je wil ... met (John) Keats en (George) Chapman in de hoofdrol, als een parodie van Bouvard en Pecuchet ... waarvan meer wel dan niet een gebrek aan kennis van Latijn, de gedichten van Keats, Ierse spreekwoorden en populaire cultuur van halfweg de 20ste eeuw een volledig waarderen van de moppen in de weg staat. Waar dat niet het geval is, echter, is de lach vol, gul en luidop.
Fragmenten van The Brother kon ik waarderen, bij andere fragmenten miste ik de houvast van het (nog grotendeels ongelezen) oeuvre van O'Brien. ( )

I was charmed, but take it with a grain of salt because I love O'Brien. This book collects a bizarre and hilarious one man play--about a poor Irish lout who doesn't like playing the characters that "that fellow" (Flann O'Brien) forces upon him--and a series of shaggy-dog puns featuring the unlikely Laurel and Hardy duo of John Keats and George Chapman, translator of Homer. The puns are excerpts from O'Brien's newspaper columns and collected out of context. Despite some of the puns paying off in Latin or with references to mid-Century Irish slang, I still enjoyed the sheer bravado of them. Fuck you, he says, their bad puns. I was amused. ( )