I’m in the middle of a mild Flann O’Brien obsession. He belongs to the
great sodality of the walking drinking writer. The name was an invention, the pseudonym, of Brian O’Nolan, and I don’t think
he was deliberately trying to invoke flaneurism, but now that name inevitably
does.
Here, one of his narrators in At Swim-Two-Birds, is writing about walking:
“Purpose of walk: Discovery and embracing
of virgins
“We attained nothing on our walk
that was relevant to the purpose thereof but we filled up the loneliness of our
souls with the music of our two voices, dog-racing, betting and offences
against chastity being the several subjects of our discourse. We walked many miles together on other nights
on similar missions - following matrons, accosting strangers, representing to
married women that we were their friends, and gratuitously molesting members of
the public. One night we were followed
in our turn by a member of the police force attired in civilian clothing. On the advice of Kelly we hid ourselves in
the interior of a church until he had gone.
I found that walking was beneficial to my health.”
Well, who could
disagree?
Can you be a
flaneur on a bike? Almost certainly, as
O’Brien suggested in The Third Policeman,
although the process was not without its dangers, largely that the rider might
become part bicycle. Not that walking is a piece of cake, either.
“The continual
cracking of your feet on the road makes a certain quantity of road come up into
you. When a man dies they say he returns to clay but too much walking fills you
up with clay far sooner (or buries bits of you along the road) and brings your
death half-way to meet you. It is not easy to know what is the best way to move
yourself from one place to another.”
There is a remarkable bit of film of O’Nolan/O’Brien,
in the company of Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony
Cronin and others celebrating Bloomsday.
Drink appears to have been taken and is affecting the walking style.
The footage seems utterly ancient, not least because it's silent, but also because of the horse and carriage they’ve hired for the
occasion, and then suddenly a Volkswagen Beetle appears:
The celebration is taking place in 1954, a half
century after the June 16th on which Ulysses
takes place. You can find the clip here
on Youtube:
