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Brendan Behan: A Life by Michael O’Sullivan (review)

1999; Philosophy Documentation Center; Volume: 3; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/nhr.1999.a926708

1534-5815

Michael Patrick Gillespie,

Irish and British Studies

Reviews: Leirmheasanna Brendan Behan: A Life, by Michael O'Sullivan, pp. 334. Boulder: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1999. $28.00. Since 1959, Richard Ellmann's writings have done much to shape the production ofsubsequent literary biographies in the late-twentieth century. From the moment that it appeared, his magisterial chronicle of the life ofJames Joyce set a standard for excellence both in the depth of his scholarship and in felicity of his prose that any biographer would be proud to reach. At the other extreme, his 1988 study of Oscar Wilde-made up of anecdotes already familiar at the beginning ofthis century and overlaid with a salacious speculation on venereal disease of the sort that Ellmann would have vigorously condemned in any other writer-provides an example of how wrong an effort to recount the story ofan already well-known life can go. Sad to say, Michael O'Sullivan's recently published biography of Brendan Behan more closely follows the pattern set by Ellmann's work on Wilde than the model laid down by his Joyce biography. Admittedly, in approaching a life of Brendan Behan, O'Sullivan faced a challenging task. From the time that Behan was arrested in Liverpool in December, 1939, for his part in an IRA bombing campaign in Britain, until his death in 1964, he lived a very public life. It is one that Behan himself chronicled in a series of memoirs written late in life. These efforts have been supplemented by recollections of his wife Beatrice, his brothers Dominic and Brian, by his mother Kathleen, and by any number of friends and acquaintances. Finally, Ulick O'Connor's witty and detailed 1970 biography remains an important source of material written by a highly literature and sophisticated critic who knew personally both Behan and the Dublin that he inhabited. All this material forces us to ask, What can a new biography offer? When applied to the O'Sullivan book, the short answer is, Not much. O'Sullivan's work suffers particularly when it is compared with its most apparent rival, the study done by Ulick O'Connor. Both works follow a conventional , linear pattern that gives attention both to Behan's personal and creative lives, thus allowing a relatively straightforward comparison. In every category, O'Sullivan's work comes up short. In setting out the background of literary Dublin in the 1940s and 1950s, O'Connor has a sure sense ofthe characters and the events that gave the city its intellectual life. O'Sullivan seems content to repeat the recollections of others. In assessing Behan's literary worth, O'Connor quotes the plays and poems in detail, giving much attention to Behan's writing in Irish as well as to his work in English, and presents running commentary the impact of various works. O'Connor's biography is especially good in offering insights on the tricky issue of the revisions that The Quare Fellow and The Hostage underwent under the direction of Joan Littlewood. Sullivan, in contrast , merely reminds us ofsuch well-known issues as Littlewood's involvement 155 Reviews: Leirmheasanna in recasting Behan's plays for the London stage, but without providing new insights into the issue. Further, he does little to give readers a sense ofBehan's development and his abilities as a writer. Finally, O'Connor manages to bring forward a detailed and even a conflicting view of Behan's complex nature, highlighting his humanity over all else; O'Sullivan struggles to do more than repeat the stereotypical views ofBehan that have offered reductive perspectives ofthe author for the last four decades. When O'Sullivan's writing does go beyond the boundaries set by the O'Connor biography, it falls into the habit of highlighting salacious details without giving a clear sense ofhow this information informs an overall view of the subject. O'Connor does not deny Behan's abuse of alcohol, but he sets Behan's drinking in the context ofa life filled with many other incidents as well. O'Sullivan, on the other hand, fills the pages ofhis study with one account after another of Behan's excessive drinking. I am by no means advocating a whitewash of Behan's character, but...