Asses in Clover by Eimar O'Duffy

by Eimar O'Duffy

This comical science fiction fantasy, written in the 1930s, offers a historical critique of politics, economics, social pretension, and globalization. The novel is the third in the Cuanduine trilogy, a series of science fiction works that challenge the "Procrustean remedy"--the adaptation of society to the paid employment system--and cite modern capitalism as the root of society's problems. In this volume Cuanduine, the mythical hero of this trilogy who is brought to earth to right the wrongs perpetrated by capitalists, turns his fury against the media, mainstream economists, and ordinary people who seek narrow, short-term, self-interested ends.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

It can sometimes seem that Eimar O’Duffy (1893-1935) is most remembered for being a forgotten writer. John Hogan begins his slim 1972 biography of O’Duffy with the line “Eimar Ultan O’Duffy is virtually a forgotten writer”, then quotes Vivian Mercier’s 1946 essay on O’Duffy: “The late Eimar O’Duffy . . . was simply ignored.”

O'Duffy, of Anglo-Irish stock, became a captain in the Irish Volunteers and was sent by Eoin MacNeill, along with Bulmer Hobson, to stop the 1916 insurrection in Belfast. He wrote a wide variety of books and plays, but it is the Cuanduine trilogy that is his great achievement. King Goshawk and the Birds is the first part of the trilogy and is an important landmark in the Irish comic novel tradition.

(From the Irish Times)

Reviews

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Только к третьему тому трилогии О’Даффи я наконец понял, кого он мне больше всего напоминает, из позднейшего, но знакомого. Он — ирландский Александр Зиновьев. Так же зверино серьезен, и «сатира» его — скорее плохо замаскированный трактат по политэкономии с некоторыми хорошо придуманными парадоксами и чутком потешной поэзии. Если относиться к нему так, как к Зиновьеву, проблем с восприятием не будет.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final installment in neglected Irish satirist Eimar O’Duffy’s trilogy is more scattershot than the pin-sharp satire of King Goshawk and the Birds and the utopian parody of Spacious Adventures. The last novel (available only from Irish small press John Carpenter Publishing) is a scabrous satire on capitalism and the economic systems that are still painfully prevalent today (neoliberalism, trickle-down), with O’Duffy turning his ire on the economists, bankers, politicians, and economic theorists who bend over backwards to explain why the poor starving is merely part of their brilliant and fair system. These early sections are hilarious, Swiftian takedowns of the warped logic of vulture capitalists, and the satire has a stinging resonance nearly one hundred years on, as we’ve learned very little in that time about economics and morality. The latter half of the novel veers more into a mix of historical/science-fictional adventure story with the benign demigod Cuanduine cutting down King Goshawk, and the various digressions that ensue have less of the satiric sting that makes the first half of the novel burn brightly. O’Duffy’s trilogy is a sublime satiric triumph, worthy of ascension into the Irish canon, currently languishing in badly typeset Dalkey Archive reprints and small Irish presses.