The Dalkey Archive

I first read "The Dalkey Archive" twenty-six years ago, while a graduate student at Trinity College in Dublin. It struck me then, as it strikes me now upon re-reading it (for the second time), as one of the most peculiarly funny books I've ever read. It combines elements of original lunacy and weird science with the resonating touchstones of a uniquely Irish comic sensibility. The story is driven by the madcap schemes of a character named De Selby, who describes himself as "a theologist and a physicist, sciences which embrace many others such as eschatology and astrognosy." De Selby invents a substance which removes all oxygen from the atmosphere (a substance he calls "DMP", the acronym for the Dublin Metropolitan Police) and then discovers that a deoxygenated atmosphere cancels the serial nature of time. The plot moves on from there, with Mick Shaughnessy, a "lowly civil servant", engaging the local constable to help him save the world from De Selby's scheme to deoxygentate the world's atmosphere. In the course of things, "The Dalkey Archive" contains two of the funniest chapters ever written (Chapters 4 and 9): one in which De Selby, Mick Shaughnessy and a drinking companion named Hackett, clad in aqualungs, talk to Saint Augustine (his "Dublin accent was unmistakable") about arcane theological doctrines and the Church Fathers in an underwater cave; the other in which Sergeant Fottrell, the constable, explains to Mick his "Mollycule Theory", the theory that people's personalities become mixed up with those of bicycles through the pounding of man and machine while pedaling down bumpy Irish country roads ("a process of prolonged carnal intercussion"). Along the way, Mick discovers that James Joyce is alive, well and bartending in the small coastal town of Skerries. Need I say more? "The Dalkey Archive" is a work of startling wit and originality, one of my comic favorites!

This is an excellent book by my favourite Irish author. It has several plots all of which are very funny, although I think my personal favourite is the love triangle between Mary, Mick, and Hackett. It was also written after James Joyce had died so it is very interesting (and amusing) how he is miscast in this book. He is alive and in hiding for one thing. Joyce was actually an early champion of Flann's work so they might have been friends.

O'Brien is not a household name but he is a wag of the calibre of Oscar Wilde or even Joyce when Joyce wasn't taking himself too seriously. This is a classic but nearly unknown work. It does require some interest in traditional literary issues such as the history of church metaphysics, but only to give the basis of a good joke. Track this work down and read it, for the betterment of your wit and understanding.

I love Flann O'Brien in both his languages and all his names. No book has ever made me laugh as loud or as long as his An Beal Bocht/The Poor Mouth, but along with the laughter, O'Brien was nudging me to reconsider a few old pieties and truisms.So too with The Dalkey Archive. Big events overtake a little place and little (though not in their own views!) people must take action. Religion and science collide head-on and the very future of the world-as-we-know-it-in-Dalkey is threatened. Perhaps a younger person can't appreciate the edge on O'Brien's themes: religion, science, world-threatening geniuses. Perhaps the end of the cold war, the burgeoning of technology and the seeming irrelevance of the Church make the questions raised in Dalkey outdated. What remains, however, is brilliant comedy of the verbal sort, the sort which no one since Perelman and the Marx Brothers has done as well in the USA. O'Brien is at his best when exploring the ligatures between the brain and the tongue. His dialogues capture perfectly the kind of conversation the Irish are famed for, but O'Brien never fails to make us notice just how many of the words are gratuitous, redundant, fatuous, for all their charm. Moreover, lurking in the verbal pyrotechnics are all manner of fallacy and foolishness: the very thing that is bound to happen when ordinary people are put upon to construct reality out of our few scraps of real information, on our feet, and with a few drinks taken. The "Truth" about religion, science, literature, Ireland, people---as the denizens of Dalkey construct it for themselves--gives us cause for healing laughter as it gently dismantles a few false gods and just as gently exposes the foibles of men and Irishmen.

I don't recall reading an odder book than "The Dalkey Archive", with the possible exception of Wilson and Shea's "Illuminatus! Trilogy". The plot revolves around an subdued madman who is attempting to destroy the Earth, and an even more subdued protagonist, who is attempting to thwart this plan. There are, of course, inconsequential, yet infinitely hilarious subplots, for example the police inspector who slits his deputy's bicycle's tires because he's convinced that, as people ride on bicycles down bumpy country lanes, molecules are exchanged between the vehicle and the rider, thereby bestowing a sort of fiendish intelligence and humanity to the instrument and a placid nonsentience to the user, with various side effects. Also, the book forces us to ask if James Joyce really died in exile, as well as if Christian saints can be resurrected through science. As I said, quite eclectic, quite odd. Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable read.