“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

Friday, December 5, 2008

On Little Nell, Crime Fiction And The Social Fabric

Yours truly tripped gaily along to the theatre last night to see The Old Curiosity Shop. The director, Alan Stanford, who also adapted the novel for the stage, had this to say in the programme notes about Charles Dickens (right, in ‘sultry belle’ mode):
“His novels, his short stories and his articles have become not only a major portion of world literature but also an important record of the social fabric of his own time. He wrote stories, but his stories were a record of the truth. His books tell us of an England and a London at the start of a new age. An age of Industrial revolution – an age of new Empire – an age of new wealth. But it was also an age of unspeakable poverty, suffering and disease. And of those evils, Dickens chose to write. To a great extent, he opened the eyes of his generation to the sufferings of the poor and weak. The tale teller could not only create characters of such size and range as to fascinate and enthral the imagination of the nation but could even make them, occasionally, examine their own consciences.”
  I’m not saying every genre, including the literary genre, can’t do the same. But it strikes me that crime fiction is the genre best placed to do so, and not only because it’s the most popular kind of writing, and thus likely to result in more occasionally examined consciences, but also because it’s the most immediate record of the social fabric of its time. Does that make it an ‘important record’? I think so. But I also think that things are generally only important up until they begin to revel in their own importance. Here’s hoping crime fiction never crawls up its own fundament in search of self-importance.
  Finally, because it is Friday, arguably my favourite piece of literary criticism, courtesy of Oscar Wilde on dismal fate of Little Nell in THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP: “It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at it.”

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