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Paperback Borstal Boy Book

ISBN: 0879234156

ISBN13: 9780879234157

Borstal Boy

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Book Overview

A teenage volunteer in the IRA, a fanatical believer, Brendan Behan was arrested with explosives at the age of 17 and spent three years locked in a British juvenile borstal. There he begins to wonder, who's really the enemy? Borstal Boy is both a riveting self-portrait and a window into the problems, passions, and heartbreak of Ireland's past. It is also a record of a change of heart. Inside the borstal (reform school), Behan meets British Protestants who are there for reasons of their own. He begins to see that class creates more common ground than he ever believed while religion and nationality are much more superficial divisions between people than he'd ever been taught. Released, Behan returned to Ireland changed though still and a rebel--and became one of that country's most important dramatists with the plays The Quare Fellow, The Hostage, and Richard's Cork Leg. Celebrated for its dialogue and masterful characterization, Borstal Boy has endured as an important document of a time and an artist. This description may be from another edition of this product.
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Customer Reviews

8 customer ratings | 5 reviews

Rated 5 stars
The more I know him, the more I regret that he's gone

There are several excellent reviews for this title, so I won't attempt to reinvent the wheel with mine. The best I can say is that with each page of this incredible book, I find myself closer to a person I never thought I'd like, let alone truly love. When all is said and done, Brendan Behan is not about The Cause or The Revolution or liberalism or conservatism or anything. Brendan is a human being, in it for Brendan and...

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Rated 5 stars
A beacon of hope about the nature of mankind

This autobiographical account of Brendan Behan's arrest and imprisonment from 1939 until around 1943 in a British Borstal (youth correctional facility)is an outstanding piece of literature. There are four primary strenghts to this great work. First, the language is witty, charming, and creative. I found the mixture of Irish and British male adolescent working class slang to be musical and amusing. Behan had a wonderful...

1Report

Rated 5 stars
Brilliant one-of-a-kind memoir

I'm an avid reader and can't believe I overlooked this book for so long. Perhaps I dismissed Behan as a professional Irishman, known more for his carousing than for his writing. What a mistake! This memoir is profound, profane, funny and, ultimately, humane. Read this book now; you're in for a treat.

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Rated 5 stars
tragicomedy about a young ira boy and his experiences

Borstal Boy makes me laugh out loud and also reminds me of my time in the British Royal Navy. One of the young Brendan Behan's fellow prisoners in the English young peoples' prison is a sailor named Charlie. The book shows some of the horrors of prison life but also a lot of the camaraderie that goes on whenever boys get together. Brendan Behan is very humorous, especially when writing about his court appearances, and when...

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Rated 5 stars
An epic page-turner

In the annals of Irish literature about the Troubles and personal accounts of IRA involvement, Behan's autobiographical work stands alone. The text is at once witty, engaging, hilarious, sad, and enlightening. Arrested at a young age in Liverpool with the makings of a bomb, his youth saves him from the usual grim prison sentence faced by Irish terrorists in England. Young Brendan is sent instead to borstal, a sort of English...

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