Pseudonym of Irish writer and civil servant Brian O'Nolan or Ó Nualláin (1911-1966), who also wrote – mainly for an Irish Times newspaper column – as Myles na Gopaleen, sometimes rendered Myles na gCopaleen. He is best known for work outside the sf field, such as the Fabulation, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939), a metafictional fantasy "saga" at the heart of which mythological entities inflict themselves on a character within a book by a man about whom the protagonist of the actual novel is writing a book, and Faustus Kelly: A Play in Three Acts (1943) as by Myles na Gopaleen, a fantasy play about the Devil in Ireland; Rhapsody in Stephen's Green: The Insect Play (1994 chap), which was produced in 1943, is a Beast Fable based on Že života hmyzu (1921 chap; trans as And So Ad Infinitum: (The World of the Insects) 1923 chap UK) by Josef Čapek and Karel Čapek; it was dangerously Satirical of both Ulster and Eire.
O'Brien's novels most closely resembling sf are The Third Policeman (written circa 1940; 1967) and The Dalkey Archive (1964). The Third Policeman is a Posthumous Fantasy (for this term and Beast Fable above > The Encyclopedia of Fantasy) in which a murderer sets off, by bicycle, through a phantasmagorical Pocket Universe whose circularity is not spatial but temporal; it features numerous science-fictional devices including a Basilisk Weapon in the form of paint with an unendurable colour. The Dalkey Archive (1964) utilizes material from the previously written book – in particular the notion of a kind of Cyborg leakage of Identity between man and bicycle – in its entrancingly eccentric presentation of a plot featuring a Mad Scientist eager to destroy the world, and the fantastic results – including temporary abolition of Time – of his Poison-gas Invention. [JC/PN/DRL]
Brian O'Nolan or Ó Nualláin
born Strabane, Northern Ireland: 5 October 1911
died Dublin, Ireland: 1 April 1966
works
links
Previous versions of this entry