Upon reading the first chapter of this book, I was very doubtful about the classification of 'Comedy' 'by the 1000 books list. We meet Cornelius Christian, a man who has just arrived in New York after a long boat trip from Ireland. During this trip - his wife died, we never find out exactly why. However, life must go on, and after he finds himself a place to stay, Cornelius begins wedding arrangements for his wife's funeral. This is where we meet Clarence Vine, an undertaker who loves his job perhaps a little too much. After giving Cornelius's wife a fabulous funeral, he offers Mr. Christian a job, since the recent immigrant is unable to repay his debts for the funeral service.
This is where we begin seeing the quirky ways of Cornelius. It seems like as soon as the guy gets a decent break, he finds way to screw it up for himself, partially due to his seemingly uncontrollable temper. While working for the funeral home he meets recent widow, Fanny Sourpuss (when I first read this name, I thought Mr. Vine was making fun of the lady - not stating her actual name). She married a rich man who was many years her elder and is now facing the consequences of her actions. However, instead of mourning she chooses Mr. Christian for her first lover. Fanny, we soon discover, is one of the most possesive women in the world, not to mention the toughest. If someone looks at Cornelius the wrong way, she immediately goes into 'protection' mode, and the other person wil not make if out of the attack unscathed.
I must admit, this book was not at all what I was expecting it to be. For one, Mr. Donleavy has a most unique writing style. The book is written like a poem, completely in sentence fragments (excluding dialogue, of course). At first, this is very difficult to get used to, but I actually quite enjoyed it. It gives you the detail you need without all the frufru fillers inbetween. It was written in 1961, so I was definitely expecting a more conservative novel. However, I forgot that this was the beginning of the rebellious era, therefore this book contains more sexual scenes then I would prefer, but these are easily skimmed since they are irrelevent to the outcome of the book. In fact... I'm not sure what is relevent to the outcome of the book. It really misses some of the main aspects of a novel, including a climax.
However, this book has enough humorous parts to keep you reading. There really isn't much suspense, but there are a few times where you want to continue reading just to see what kind of mess Cornelius will get himself into, and how he'll get himself out. There are about as many fight scenes in this novel as there are sex scenes, however, the fight scenes are very entertaining. My favorite part of this book is where a lady gets punched in the face during a bar fight hard enough to knock her eyeball out of it's socket. You have to admit that is pretty darn amazing imagry, not to mention creativity.
If I were to meet Cornelius Christian in real life, I can almost guarantee we wouldn't get along. Though he may be wise to the ways of the streets, he is ignorant in almost all sense of social niceties and common courtesy, not to mention common sense. If someone tries to be civil to him, he has some sort of snide remark to give back. And if someone tries to be rude to them, well t can expect a death threat or a solid punch to the face. These attributes, while amusing to a reader, would not be entertaining to an actual acquaintence.
One of the things I enjoy most about this book is that J P Donleavy only gives a character a name if they are of some importance to the plot. You can tell if a character will only be around for a short while because they will simply get a nickname based on physical appearance. In case you can't tell, I hate when authors add many meaningless characters and make them seem like the star of the book for the entire paragraph they are featured. It is frustrating and confusing.
This book was, in the end, excellent. I will not ruin the ending, but it has a nice rounded and finalized feeling. I find it a shame that, previous to me, it hadn't been checked out since 1975. If you are OK with skimming some sex scenes, and some bad language, it is an amazingly humorous book that has a sense of lightheartedness to it. All and all I give this book FOUR OUT OF FIVE STARS!!
Reading Next: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
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