Search results for ""Author Alf Maclochlainn""

Childhood play, scarlet fever, a first kiss, befriending a Nazi spy--the narrative of "Past Habitual" roams through experiences both commonplace and formative, all under the uneasy canopy of wartime Ireland. Moving with ease between the voices of a young child, a German immigrant, an I.R.A member, and colloquial chatter, MacLochlainn forms a web of interactions that expose a century's tensions. A combination of traditional prose, poetry, monologue, and music, "Past Habitual" is an engaging and fascinating depiction of an Ireland struggling through the effects of war--both distant and on her doorstep.

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The anonymous narrator in Alf MacLochlainn's?"Out of Focus"?has more than blurred vision when he looks at the world around him as he recuperates from his many minor accidents. His visual perception or skewed perspective is a working out of the author's theory taken from William Molyneux's statement in 1692 "that an object may be seen in two places yet not seen double." / Whether he is on his bed looking through the crystal of his watch, or in a hospital bathtub peering into the overflow opening, or sitting on a chaise lounge with an empty barrel of a ballpoint pen or ring from a beer can to his eye, or back in his bed looking through a gauze bandage, this very accident-prone hero/victim manages to see inside what appears to be real-life scenes going on outside. / And when he is not playing the voyeur, his mind runs on zany inventions (natural/non-natural bust supports and shot-proof crystal eye protectors, for example) and pseudo-pedantic discussions about optics, clocks and cycling designs. / Although everything about this novel is original--plot, style, illustrations--it tips its hat in passing to some of those who have gone before: Beckett's Malone Dies and Molloy, and the narrators of "At Swim-Two-Birds" and "Cadenza."

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In this collection of two novellas and seven short stories, Alf MacLochlainn comically reduces life’s problems to the minute details of everyday existence. Socks, shoes, and trousers suggest perplexing difficulties: how best to put them on, the intricacies involved in keeping them on, the physical (as well as psychological) laws related to the interaction of body and clothing. All such speculations come to an absurd, crashing halt as the contemporary mind, filled with an overload of information, attempts but fails to make sense of some of the simplest, though of course complex, mundane facts of daily life. From Dublin to Central Illinois to Outer Space, MacLochlainn’s stories embody the imaginative spirit of Samuel Beckett and Flann O’Brien.

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