Based on a series of lectures he gave in Trinity College in the early 1960s, The Backward Look was Frank O'Connor's last book, though he had died by the time Macmillan published it in 1967.
I first came across it the following year in UCD's Earlsfort Terrace library, and was fascinated by its exploration of the tradition that links the Irish literature of a pre-Christian era to that of successive ages, right down to our own time. Typical of O'Connor, its arguments were sometimes contentious and occasionally rude, but always provocatively stimulating (the chapter on censorship in the Forties and Fifties is a splendid exercise in spleen), and soon after that first reading of it, I acquired a copy of my own.
Sometime in the early Seventies I lost it. Perhaps I loaned it to someone who forgot to give it back, perhaps someone borrowed it without my knowledge, or perhaps it simply vanished during one of those countless moves from flat to flat that characterises the younger lives of so many of us. Whatever happened, it was gone, and I resolved to purchase another copy.
This didn't turn out to be easy. In fact, it turned out to be impossible, and thus for more than two decades I've searched high and low in second-hand bookshops, consulted innumerable catalogues and requested kindly booksellers to ask around about it.
All to no avail, until last week when I was leafing through the latest catalogue from Stokes Books in the South Great George's Street Market Arcade, and, lo and behold, there it was, a first edition (the only edition) being offered at £25. The next day I was in the shop and the book was mine, and so, too, was a first edition in mint condition of James Plunkett's The Trusting and the Maimed for £15.
This may sound like much ado about very little, but dedicated seekers after long-lost volumes will recognise the rush of excitement at such a find (a rush I also experienced some years ago in a Los Angeles bookstore when I happened upon a perfect edition of Kenneth Tynan's incomparable 1961 book of theatre criticism, Curtains).
So three cheers for Stokes Books and its proprietor, Stephen Stokes, not to mention his charming mother, with whom I had a long conversation. I haven't mentioned this shop before, simply because it's not in an obvious location and I keep forgetting ab out it. My omission entirely - its stock of books, especially Irish books, is very impressive, and its prices are not exorbitant.
Patrick McCabe's new novel, Breakfast on Pluto (see review on page 10), has been receiving mixed reviews in the British heavies, including a disappointed reaction in the Sunday Times and a rave in the Observer.
You can judge for yourself by buying the book and reading it. You can also hear the author reading from it (and from other work) in Flanagan's above Belfast's Crown Bar next Wednesday at 7.30pm and in Dublin's Temple Bar Music Centre on Thursday at 8pm.
I would strongly recommend going along to either venue - he really is a terrific reader, as the Simon & Schuster audiotape of The Butcher Boy demonstrates with great panache.
Incidentally, in both venues he'll be supported by singer Jack L, whom no less an authority than Hot Press hails as "Ireland's answer to Jacques Brel and Tom Waits all rolled into one". Tickets for the Belfast reading are £2 (available from Waterstone's) and for the Dublin, £5 (available from either Hodges Figgis or the Temple Bar Music Centre). In both cases, the tickets are redeemable against the price of the book.
Roddy Doyle, eat your heart out! That's the cry from Gerry Burns of Richill, Co Armagh, who admits to being a "long-suffering" Manchester City supporter (how could a City supporter be anything else than long-suffering?)
However, this isn't what recently caused him to turn to footballing verse. Instead, he chose to recall the 1958 FA Cup Final in which the great Nat Lofthouse secured the trophy for Bolton Wanderers against Manchester United. Gerry, who works in Portadown's library service, sent the finished poem to Bolton and is thrilled that they'll be using it in their match programme next season. They're also sending a copy of it to Nat who, they feel, will be "enchanted" with it.
Time, methinks, for Roddy to celebrate Chelsea's recent European success by penning a valedictory ode to Vialli.
Attendance at a small, intimate dinner in Baggot Street's L'Ecrivain restaurant turned out to be both a privilege and a pleasure.
The hosts were Michael Gill and Fergal Tobin of Gill & Macmillan, and the person being honoured was Henry Boylan, author of A Dictionary of Irish Biography, the third edition of which has just been published. The book is indispensable, the man is a charmer. A memorable evening.