A Singular Country - Hardcover

Donleavy, J. P.; Donleavy J. P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393027600 ISBN 13: 9780393027600

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1990

Synopsis

A personal view of Ireland, told in the vernacular of the Irishman, recreates the vivid range of Ireland's people, including small farmers, landed aristocrats, Anglo-English, priests, politicians, saints, and scholars

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

"It is now time to get it firmly established in your mind that Ireland is more upper cruster pukka than you think." So begins this entertaining excursion into the untrammeled opinions of Donleavy, the Bronx-born Irish author of The Ginger Man , A Singular Man et al. With bawdy humor, Donleavy, in this idiosyncratic sketch of his adopted homeland, takes aim at indigenous "yuppies," nouveau riche American tourists and other material and philosophical invaders of Gaelic tranquility. The targets range from the Anglo-Saxon-Irish ascendancy, whose "pasha Squire" descendants allow paying guests into their crumbling estates, to real estate entrepreneurs, whom he sees as scarring the Irish landscape with crass bungalows. Comic, perceptive, rich in anecdotes, this picture will unsettle some readers, but the accompanying photographs by Patrick Prendergast confirm that Ireland's ancient beauty lives on.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Having published a novel about an unpleasant protagonist, A Singular Man, and a largely autobiographical memoir of his adopted country, J.P. Donleavy's Ireland, the author adds an unpleasant book about the nation. For more than a century people have attempted to indentify "The Irish Problem." For Donleavy, the problem is everything but himself: the poor, the middle class, the wealthy; old architecture and new housing; tourism and lack of tourism; religion and too much religion; copulation and not enough copulation. That Ireland fails to meet Donleavy's exacting standards will surprise no one. What those standards are may interest only the most dedicated Donleavy readers.
- John P. Harrington, Cooper Union, New York
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0393027600
• ISBN 13: 9780393027600
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 198