The Hard Life
Encyclopedia
The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor is a comic novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Flann O'Brien
Flann O'Brien
Brian O'Nolan was an Irish novelist, playwright and satirist regarded as a key figure in postmodern literature. Best known for novels such as At Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman and An Béal Bocht and many satirical columns in The Irish Times Brian O'Nolan (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966) was...

 (pen name of Brian O'Nolan). Published in 1961, it was O'Brien's fourth novel and the third to be published. (He wrote The Third Policeman
The Third Policeman
The Third Policeman is a novel by Irish author Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It was written between 1939 and 1940, but after it initially failed to find a publisher, the author withdrew the manuscript from circulation and claimed he had lost it. The book remained...

in 1939, but this novel was published only posthumously, in 1967). Set in turn-of-the-century Dublin, The Hard Life is a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 Bildungsroman
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood , and in which character change is thus extremely important...

 which deals the education and upbringing of the narrator, Finnbarr, and his brother Manus. The novel offers a mocking critique of certain representatives of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

, the development of Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 identity, and the function of formal education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

. The novel was initially very popular, with its first print out selling out within forty-eight hours (p. 271), and has been republished several times in Ireland, the UK and USA, both as a stand-alone work and most recently in Flann O'Brien: The Complete Novels (Everyman's Library, 2007).

Plot summary

The story opens with Finnbarr the narrator recalling the death of his mother in 1890, when he was around five years old. He and his brother Manus (often called simply "the brother" in the story) are raised in the home of their half-uncle, Mr Collopy. Collopy lives with his partner Mrs Crotty - it is unclear if they are married and the narrator can only speculate why she retained the name of her first husband - and Annie, Collopy's daughter from an earlier marriage. Finnbarr describes Collopy's home as a squalid environment where the boys are served greasy meatballs for dinner and a household with a "dead atmosphere" with little opportunity for amusement. Collopy and the parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

 priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

, a German Jesuit domiciled in Dublin and bearing the comical name of Father Fahrt, frequently indulge in long bouts of drinking and none of the adults exhibit much concern for the child's welfare.

Finnbarr and his brother are sent to different schools, but both are run by the Catholic Christian Brothers
Congregation of Christian Brothers
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Blessed Edmund Rice. The Christian Brothers, as they are commonly known, chiefly work for the evangelisation and education of youth, but are involved in many ministries, especially with...

, both boys detest their schools with equal passion, and O'Brien mocks both with equal contempt. Finnbarr's first impression of his school is that it resembles a prison, he describes the horrors of corporal punishment
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...

 by "the leather" in detail, and refers to "struggling through the wretched homework, cursing Wordsworth and Euclid
Euclid
Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...

 and Christian Doctrine and similar scourges of youth". Finnbarr attends Synge Street Christian Brothers School
Synge Street CBS
Synge Street CBS is a Christian Brothers School in Dublin 8, Ireland. It was founded in 1864.-Primary school:The primary section caters for boys from seven to twelve years. It is called Sancta Maria CBS. It opened in 1954.-Secondary school:...

, the former school of O'Brien/O'Nolan himself, while Manus attends Westland Row Christian Brothers School.

Manus is both resourceful and deceitful, and while still at school comes up with a cunning idea to raise money. He offers distance-learning courses for a small fee on a wide variety of subjects about which he knows very little. He researches information on these subjects in the local library and re-hashes the prose of encyclopedias, writing in a pseudo-intellectual, abstruse style deliberately designed to look impressive but remain incomprehensible. This business proves extremely successful and eventually he leaves school and emigrates to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where he offers a wider range of courses and also develops medicinal remedies to sell.

The novel shows that Mr Collopy is dedicating his time to the pursuit of a certain social or political cause, but never states the nature of this cause directly. Early in the novel, it appears that the issue holds considerable gravity: we know that it concerns women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

 and that Collopy is rallying the Dublin Corporation to implement some kind of change, and trying to persuade Father Fahrt for the support of the church. However, later in the novel it becomes clear that the issue in question is the establishment of public lavatories in Dublin, and while Collopy is campaigning for this, he is clearly just as prudish as the Dublin authorities he is fighting against, because he will only mention the issue through euphemisms or circumlocutions.

When Collopy falls ill, Manus sends Finnbarr one of his potions "Gravid Water" to help him. However, Finnbarr administers the wrong dosage of Gravid Water, which causes rapid weight gain and eventually leads to Collopy's death. Manus also devises a scheme to get Collopy and Father Fahrt an audience with Pope Pius X, so that he can garner his support for the lavatory campaign. However, Manus is aware that the Pope will have little time for Collopy and Fahrt, and enjoys the spectacle of their humiliation, as the angry Pope - in a mixture of Latin and Italian - quite literally "sends them to Hell". The novel closes with Finnbarr vomiting out of a feeling of disgust for his brother's lack of morals and the squalid and hypocritical world in which he lives.

The novel opens in 1890 and the date on Collopy's gravestone is 1910, so, in theory, the events in the novel should span over a twenty-year period. However, this appears to be contradicted by the fact that the narrator, Finnbarr, is still in school when Collopy dies, which is highly unlikely, as he would now be twenty-four years old. This presents us with a chronological problem.

Major themes

The Hard Life is dominated by a spirit of squalor and despair. The Dublin that the boys inhabit is a decaying city, and they are brought up in a broken family. Much of the satirical humor of the book targets the Roman Catholic Church and its schools: the theological disputes between Father Fahrt and Collopy are ridiculed, and often even the boys correct their misunderstandings. However, as Clissmann points out, O'Brien remained a practising Catholic throughout his life and his attack can be read as one against particular individuals and practices rather than the institution as a whole.

The book also pokes fun at education and how gullible people can be deceived by flowery prose. Manus is easily able to deceive the public when he sells pamphlets on diverse subjects despite relying on repackaging information from library books. While Manus's scheme initially seems clever and attractive to the narrator, after Collopy's death he realizes its moral bankruptcy
Moral bankruptcy
Moral bankruptcy is a synonym for immorality that has gained popular usage in the fields of business and politics, in which it specifically implies some instance of political corruption or corporate crime...

 and rejects it.

Literary significance and reception

The first print run of The Hard Life sold out in Dublin in less than forty-eight hours, and initial review were very positive. Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...

, to whom the novel is dedicated, responded warmly to the dedication, and reviewers such as Maurice Edelman
Maurice Edelman
Maurice Edelman was a British Labour Party politician and novelist who represented Coventry constituencies in the House of Commons for over 30 years.- Early life :...

 and Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson  – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...

 complimented the novel by comparing it to the works of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

. Other newspaper reviews praised the work for its "first rate dialogue", its "wild, hilarious, irreverent comedy" and its "glorious version of the English language.

However, many recent critical studies of the novel suggest that it is the weakest of O'Brien's novels. Keith Donohue (2007) writes that "in terms of sheer artistry, the novel is far more conservative" than O'Brien's early work and considers O'Brien's choice of themes "oddly oblique", arguing the prudish Catholicism that O'Brien was targeting was waning by the early 1960s anyway. Sue Asbee (1991) comments "it is unlikely that the work would remain in print today" if it were not for the strength of O'Brien's other novels. Anne Clissmann (1975) suggests the "lavatory humour" of the novel quickly loses its appeal and concludes "The Hard Life is ultimately unsatisfying to read because it lacks coherence and is too one-sided a vision of squalid reality."

Publication history

Details of the first edition: 1961, Dublin, Ireland: MacGibbon and Kee. ISBN 0261616374, Pub. date 1 December 1961, Hardback.

The first American edition was published in 1962 by Pantheon Books.

There have been numerous editions by publishers based in the UK, Ireland and the USA since 1962. Most recently, The Hard Life has been included in a volume of collected works: Flann O'Brien: The Complete Novels, New York, Toronto and London: Everyman's Library, 2007. ISBN 0307267498. Hardback.

Interestingly, at least one critic has posited that O'Brien was hoping The Hard Life would be banned under the Censorship of Publications Act
Censorship in the Republic of Ireland
Ireland rarely exercises censorship though the state retains wide-ranging laws which allow for it, including specific laws covering films, advertisements, newspapers and magazines, as well as terrorism and pornography...

because this would arouse curiosity about the book and could often lead to increased publicity and sales. Censorship would also give him the opportunity to enter into a legal battle against the government, with the possibility of further publicity.
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