“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Thursday, July 31, 2008

The Unbearable Likeness Of Being

There’s a book, you probably know it, called THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera, which is good fun if you like that kind of thing. I certainly did when I read it, which is years ago now, but as far as I remember the general gist is that a life lived without responsibility – personal, social or political – results in an unbearable lightness of being. I believe Hollywood is sweating slavishly over a new adaptation, with Adam Sandler and Jessica Alba playing the leads.
  Anyhoos, the reason I mention it is that when I first heard about Tana French’s follow-up to IN THE WOODS, which was to be about all kinds of doppelgangery flummery and titled THE LIKENESS, I blogged about it and called the post ‘The Unbearable Likeness of Being’.
  Yes, it’s piss-poor. But the reason I mention it – and this is for all you folks who arrived at this post after googling ‘the unbearable likeness of being’ – is that what you’re actually looking for is THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera.
  That’s ‘lightness’, not ‘likeness’.
  No thanks, please. It’s all part of the service.

2 comments:

Peter Rozovsky said...

Having a bit of puckish fun with another author’s title, are you? Shocking!.
===================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

Declan Burke said...

Hmmm ... quite the day for po-mo japestering, Peter ... Cheers, Dec