At first glance, with its humorous title, cover and propaganda - "Time to name and shame the great, good, and gobshites" - this seems to be another one of those fecking terrible books that are written in a hurry for the Christmas market . John Waters, however, is too smart and against force. Instead, it gets high priest costumes, and offers 50 mini-sermons that are sweet and tart, playful and humane, profound and provocative, reflective and exasperating, often all at the same time. Has been recycled and revised many of the issues and themes that have dominated his columns and other writings in recent years, including his magnificent book Jiving at the Crossroads, first published in 1991, and molded into a treatise on the origins of our contemporary bankrupt banana republic.
As the waters were seen, many of our problems stem from self-hatred instilled by the British colonization and disgust and distrust of everything that followed Indian independence. Spiritual and psychological freedom desired by the first of its nominal feckers, Patrick Pearse, was lost after he and his fellow rebels were executed and "denied posterity intelligence that could have brought to the project of independence." That project was also undermined by the drink, the list includes Arthur Guinness, who began a process whereby non-drinker was "no collective soul of Ireland", while the myths built around the likes of Brendan Behan in the sense that "drink and literature go hand in hand."
Ben Dunne snr is also pointed out, bringing cheap clothes to Ireland that apparently gave women a new power over men, who could not now buy their own clothes, which destroyed his confidence. This sermon, one of a number dripping with sexism - later, Bishop Eamon Casey says "Knocked Up", his "compression of America" - allows the water to enjoy one of their hate, feminism, and laments that an Irish woman not as an Italian woman who is not "afraid of anyone you know is interested in pleasing her man."
He has a lot of other goals, including Gay Byrne (who celebrate the success of The Late Late Show are, according to him, celebrating the success of their particular agendas), and "very bright" Garret FitzGerald, who was also "a political disaster "that made us" care with the speakers and thinkers "in politics.
In writing about the music of Shane MacGowan, Water loses all sense of the literary discipline: "It was both a celebration and a negative, a kick and a kiss. It was a soundtrack of neurosis stems from the lack post-independence of Irish culture to find a way to go starting in itself - but also, for the same reasons, living, jumping, rising abruptly from the spirit that had become suppressed. It was a deconstruction of something recognizable as having been collected in some the wrong way... "Enough!
On the contrary, there are some portraits masterly prose to be savored. John McGahern writes perceptively about and the way in which his father hung to dry in his famous report, Conor Cruise O'Brien, who was "incapable of seeing that is not the dark side of his own people", and Des O 'Malley , "the guy who threatens to topple the establishment so that the establishment will move and invite him to join her." Gerry Adams is punished for his stomach turn high moral tone about irregularities while refusing to admit members of the IRA. In one of his most amusing contributions, the waters regrets the decision of Mike Murphy leaves TVE by humor and broadcasting skills he took with him, much to the detriment of the national mood.
Inevitably, Mary Robinson was attacked - "his words reach a new level of evil little woman" - while justifiable, well-directed missiles are thrown at Louis Walsh for crimes against music and Irish bloggers cowardly, anonymous and mean, which is characterized as O'Blog Paddy. Another concern is the environment, as they became "the highest court in the land." No deep reflection on the innovative Sunday World in the late 1970 and its editor, Gerry McGuinness, before adopting a British tabloid culture.
There are also plenty of digs at the political incorrect perception of the Irish Times and the campaign of Frank McDonald, Environment newspaper editor against the unique property - they were not the problem, which rightly contends: mal farm planned housing were. Owen Keegan, head of traffic with the Corporation of Dublin, also gets a kick out of monitoring the introduction of subject vehicles, a "monstrous affront to public freedom." The book also contains excellent reviews of ill-conceived attempt by the consultants of media skills to the test of natural Enda Kenny, irreverent and humorous self, and the unfortunate limitations of the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen.
In carrying out this project clearly Waters decided to be a complete feck himself, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as he notes, the word "feck" retains an element of relationship - "someone who can run out of patience, but not of all the love "- which is actually a very clear description of the author. He is willing to challenge "the analysis to be sold daily by the ideologues of the axes to grind", but has no shortage of personal axes to grind and, indeed, sometimes it is so frantic that grind drowning in his own verbiage and pop psychology. But it also manages to make very specific assessments of our failures of self-knowledge and historical patterns that have shaped contemporary society.
bitch asides abound, and abject fear of assertive women is pathetic, but this is a book to be read, Waters writes well and with originality on false forms of freedom and our psychological ailments, spiritual and cultural.
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