Flann O'Brien, Bakhtin, and Menippean Satire

by M Keith Booker

Overview

This work applies Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of literary discourse and the concept of carnivalisation to the work of Flann O'Brien. The author emphasizes the political and social implications of the writings, arguing that O'Brien maintained a reflexive focus on language throughout his career.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815626657
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1995
Series:	Irish Studies Series
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

M. Keith Booker is an associate professor of English at the University of Arkansas. He has been published extensively in literary journals in this country and abroad, and he is the author of several books including: Techniques of Subversion in Modern Literature: Transgression, Abjection, and the Carnivalesque, Literature and Domination: Sex, Knowledge, and Power in Modern Fiction, Vargas Llosa among the Postmodernists, and The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism.

Editorial Reviews

Booker (English, U. of Arkansas) offers a reading of Irish author O'Brien's major works within the context of the carnivalesque ambivalence of Menippean satire and of Mikhail Bakhtin's work in general. After placing O'Brien in an Irish context and relating his work to that of Beckett, he looks at five of O'Brien's major works, demonstrating that his vision in not unequivocally pessimistic. He then compares O'Brien to modern writers including Kafka, Conrad, Queneau, Garcia Marquez, and Bulgakov. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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