“Not with a bang but a whimper”: uncovering pandemic strains in Flann O’Brien’s later works

ABSTRACT

During the 1950s and 1960s influenza was a recurring theme in the Cruiskeen Lawn, a satirical column by Myles na Copaleen (Flann O’Brien) in The Irish Times. The columns’ engagement arose from Ireland’s experience of brutal influenza seasons and, in particular, the 1957–58 pandemic, known at the time as the Asian Flu. The pandemic’s virus killed approximately over a million people worldwide, but until our recent, COVID-inspired interest in historical outbreaks, has received very limited critical engagement. In this article I take Flann O’Brien’s The Dalkey Archive as a case study through which to explore literary studies’ amnesia regarding medical history, specifically the 1957–58 pandemic, subsequent influenza outbreaks, and associated bacterial complications. Weaving together O’Brien’s correspondence, journalism and final completed novel, I propose a new way of understanding The Dalkey Archive, one that deprioritises its connections to politics and presents it instead as a response to the symptoms and strains of pandemics and outbreaks.

KEYWORDS:

• Flann O’Brien
• Myles na gCopaleen
• 1957–58 pandemic
• influenza
• breath
• medical history

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. “No Asian ‘Flu Before 1967,” Irish Press, 10 December, 1963, 7. Total deaths in Ireland from the influenza epidemic in 1951 were 2,399, which at the time was the highest recorded figure since 1937 (An Roinn Sláinte, Tuarascáil an Árd-Chláraitheora 1951, 7).

2. Myles na gCopaleen is the name under which Brian O’Nolan, sometimes better known as Flann O’Brien, wrote the Cruiskeen Lawn columns. O’Nolan’s various pseudonyms complicate citational practices, but accepted best practice by the Flann O’Brien Society is to refer to the author’s life and general writings under his real name, while using his pseudonyms to refer to his various publications. Thus, O’Nolan worked for the Civil Service, O’Brien wrote At Swim-Two-Birds and Myles (the first name is preferred) wrote Cruiskeen Lawn.

3. na gCopaleen, Cruiskeen Lawn, 22 January, 1951, 4.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. na gCopaleen, “In Flew Enza – III,” Cruiskeen Lawn, 23 December, 1955, 6.

7. Ibid. Myles repeats this in “Hard Words – II,” Cruiskeen Lawn, 10 March, 1956.

8. Viboud et al., “Global Mortality Impact,” 738. A World Health Organisation page made the broader claim of between 1 and 4 million deaths (World Health Organization: Regional Office for Europe. “Past pandemics.” Accessed 21 October, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220105214754/https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/communicable-diseases/influenza/pandemic-influenza/past-pandemics).

9. Outka, Viral Modernism, 1–31.

10. Ahearn, “‘Where you bin, bud?,’” 97–115; Schiff, “‘The Situation had become Deplorably Fluid,’” 116–130; Gillespie, “The Soft Misogyny of Good Intentions,” 77–94; Houston, “‘Veni, V.D., Vici,’” 146–162; and Long, “Abject Bodies,” 163–177.

11. Ebury, “Physical Comedy and the Comedy of Physics,” 87–104; Fennell, “Irelands Enough and Time,” 33–45; Hopper, Flann O’Brien; and Nolan, “Flann, Fantasy, and Science Fiction,” 178–190.

12. Brian O’Nolan to Timothy O’Keeffe, Collected Letters, 325; and Brian O’Nolan to Mark Hamilton, Collected Letters, 344.

13. Brian O’Nolan to Mark Hamilton, Collected Letters, 364; Brian O’Nolan to Timothy O’Keeffe, Collected Letters, 325; and Brian O’Nolan to Hester Green, Collected Letters, 336.

14. Brian O’Nolan to Timothy O’Keeffe, Collected Letters, 343.

15. “Hong Kong Battling Influenza Epidemic,” New York Times, 17 April, 1957, 3.

16. Pennington, “A Slippery Disease,” 789–790.

17. See too: “Influenza Epidemic Spreads in Asia,” The Irish Times, 10 June, 1957, 9.

18. Edmundson and Hodgkin, “No Sign of More Influenza,” 112–113.

19. “Future of Asian Influenza,” 732.

20. “Asian ‘Flu Confirmed in Dublin,” The Irish Times, 1 October, 1957, 7.

21. na gCoplaeen, “The Scourge,” Cruiskeen Lawn, 24 August, 1957, 8.

22. “Dozen Asian ‘Flu Cases Confirmed in the Republic,” The Irish Times, 9 October, 1957, 7.

23. Quidnunc, “An Irishman’s Diary,” The Irish Times, 9 October, 1957, 6. This exchange ends with a dubious aside that I will interpret as an attempt to critique, rather than support, the segregation occurring in Arkansas, US: “Look, even in Little Rock you can still ride in a bus if you have the sniffles.”

24. See, for example: “Dublin’s Two Cases of Asian “Flu,” 1; “‘Flu Closes Sligo Schools,” 1; “More ‘Flu But Mild,” 1; “‘Flu closes 17 schools in Dublin,” 1; “‘Flu Epidemic Spreading,” 1; “News from the County,” 11; “‘Flu Still Spreading,” 13; and “Items of Interest,” 2.

25. “Asian influenza on Wane,” 9.

26. An Roinn Sláinte, Tuarascáil ar Staidreamh Beatha 1957; An Roinn Sláinte, Tuarascáil ar Staidreamh Beatha 1958. Deaths from pneumonia were higher – just over 2000 for 1957–1958.

27. Jackson, “History Lessons,” 622; Bud, “Germ Warfare,” 30; “10,000,000 caught Asian ‘Flu in Britain,” 4; and “Asian ‘Flu Brought Record Sickness Claims in Britain,” 2.

28. “Asian ‘Flu Brought Record Sickness Claims in Britain,” 2; and Jackson, “History lessons,” 622.

29. na gCoplaeen, “The Scourge,” 8. In this article Myles refers to Asian ‘flu as “swine fever” and a week later announces his prescience, saying that “Asian Influenza is the same virus as causes swine fever. […] Any pathologist who needs a locum should get in touch with me at Santry Great Place” (na gCoplaeen, “Omnium Gatherum,” 6). Myles was incorrect, however, as H2N2 was an avian flu.

30. na gCopaleen, “Limophilia,” 6.

31. na gCopaleen, “Youth in Asia,” 8.

32. Honigsbaum, “Revisiting the 1957 and 1968,” 1825.

33. This position, responsive to contemporary politics as it is, is also in line with Myles’s claims of anti-Asian racism among western powers, particularly following the end of the Second World War. In CL, 20 August, 1945, 3, for example, he makes pointed remarks about the American use of the atomic bomb in Japan. I am grateful to the reviewer for this point.

34. na gCopaleen, “Asian Blood,” 8.

35. See, for example: Barras and Greub, “History of Biological Warfare,” 497–502.

36. Medical Correspondent, “Asian ‘Flu is not dangerous,” 6.

37. na gCopaleen, “Return of the Native,” 6.

38. Ibid.

39. Rosenberg, “What Is an Epidemic? AIDS in Historical Perspective,” 2.

40. Oswald, Shooter and Curwen, “Pneumonia Complicating Asian Influenza,” 1307–1308.

41. Medical Correspondent, “Bacteria have Set up a Resistance Movement,” 6.

42. Oswald, Shooter and Curwen, “Pneumonia Complicating Asian Influenza,” 1306.

43. Bud, “Germ Warfare,” 31.

44. Bud, Penicillin: Triumph and Tragedy, 120. Following the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928, and the work of Ernst Chain and Howard Florey in the early 1940s in rendering penicillin available for mass production, the antibiotic became widely available in 1945, marking the start of the antibiotic era. See, for example: Aminov, “A Brief History of the Antibiotic Era.”

45. Nemo Crabbe, one of The Dalkey Archive’s medical students, complains that studying medicine is an exercise in futility, as “Revolutionary advances in diagnosis, treatment and pharmacology take place every few months nowadays. A new wonder-drug makes dozens of familiar medicaments obsolete overnight. Look at penicillin and the antibiotics generally” (O’Brien, The Complete Novels, 695). The conversation turns to the fact that Fleming didn’t discover anything new, as “the intrinsic secret of penicillin was known to folk medicine” (O’Brien, The Complete Novels, 696). Yet there it stops, which furthers the novel’s anachronisms: why would a medical student complaining of changes in the medical scene mention the wonders of penicillin, but not new strains of penicillin-resistant bacteria? An article on the dangers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria was placed above the Cruiskeen Lawn column of 4 February, 1956, and it is extremely unlikely that a man of O’Nolan’s poor health would have been unaware of the cracks in the antibiotic age (Medical Correspondent, “The Doctors Think Again,” The Irish Times, 4 February, 1956, 8). Is the novel set, then, in a reassuring time when antibiotics remained an untroubled cure? Or in raising penicillin at all does O’Nolan presume that antibiotic resistance goes without saying, which thereby reminds readers of the absence of perfect weapons of destruction or cure, be they De Selby’s D.M.P. or antibiotics?

46. na gCopaleen, “In Flew Ensa,” 8.

47. Brian O’Nolan to Timothy O’Keeffe, Collected Letters, 252.

48. Brian O’Nolan to Leslie Daiken, Collected Letters, 260.

49. An Roinn Sláinte, Tuarascáil ar Staidreamh Beatha 1961. On 8 February the Irish Times reported that “During the last three weeks, 68 people died in Dublin as a direct result of the influenza epidemic. Of this number, 43 died from influenza pneumonia” (“‘Flu Caused 68 Deaths,” The Irish Times, 8 February, 1961, 1).

50. Brian O’Nolan to Leslie Daiken, Collected Letters, 266.

51. O’Brien, The Dalkey Archive, 707.

52. O’Brien, The Complete Novels, 668.

53. Ibid. 613.

54. Ibid., 687.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid. 621, (italics mine).

58. Ibid. 635.

59. Ibid. 766.

60. Ibid. 768.

61. Niall Montgomery to John Lincoln “Jack” Sweeney, Collected Letters, xv.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand