Mad, Bad, Dangerous To Know is a collection of lectures given by Colm Toibin on three famous Irish writers, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and Oscar Wilde. and the roles their fathers played in shaping their lives and careers. I chose to read this book because I have always loved Oscar Wilde and was interested in finding out more about him and his family life. The book is actually so much more than just a historical essay on the authors, though. It really encompasses Irish culture, their relationship with England, and the history of art and writing in that environment.

The introduction was extremely well written and featured an account of the wanderings of the author through the historically rich streets of Dublin. I found this section fascinating as it really set the stage for what was to come. Personal letters, both to and from the three writers and their fathers, and accounts left behind by contemporaries gave the sections dedicated to the individual writers an unexpected depth. Talking about a subject is one thing, but seeing their experiences through their own words was an added bonus. I really was able to feel Colm Toibin's love for the Irish country, people, and art through this book. In a few instances, the author made mention of a historical event or person, perhaps under the assumption that these would be well known outside of Ireland or literary circles, with little or no explanation of what they were. It left me to Google these points, which interrupted the flow of the book. These were easy to overlook, though, as the overall book was great.

Thank you to the publisher, Scribner, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book. It was provided in exchange for an honest review. ( )

https://shawjonathan.com/2019/11/13/mad-bad-dangerous-to-know-at-the-book-group-... ( )

Ireland in the late 19th century was politically sparking, socially heaving, and artistically fertile. It was also, in truth, a fairly small world, or at least Dublin was. Nearly everyone within a certain class knew each other either in passing or more intimately. So it’s maybe not surprising that the fathers of Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, and James Joyce, at one time or another crossed paths. It’s also not so surprising that they shared similar traits be that fecklessness or fecundity. What Colm Tóibín explores, however, is how these fathers affected the works of their sons. And in each case, even those of extreme distancing as with Yeats and Joyce, the father's presence in the work of the sons is startling.

Tóibín’s research is comprehensive and his insights are always subtle and well-founded. To have such an in-depth knowledge of the literature and artistic history or one’s land might only be found in Ireland. I don’t know. It’s certainly gives one pause. Tóibín’s own fiction and poetry is clearly imbued with his reading of his nation’s history. But equally significant, though unexplored here, is the well-known fact of Tóibín’s own father’s influence on his writing. And that in the end may explain why Tóibín even pursues this research project so thoroughly. If so, so much the better. This is a beautifully written set of essays that will enlighten and entertain as well as renew your respect for what a thoughtful writer can achieve in his more academic mode.

Certainly recommended. ( )

This is really a series of lectures and more is the pity that my knowledge of the subject was not broad, nor deep enough to appreciate Toibin’s writing. Set in Dublin there is an expectation that the reader will be familiar with streets, people and events. Unfortunately I lack the knowledge and after fumbling through while I could appreciate the wry humor Toibin’s insight was lost on me.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for a copy ( )

Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know, the fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce is, as you would expect from Colm Tóibín, beautifully written— but whether it’s a book for you might depend on how interested you are in Wilde, Yeats and Joyce.
Now I am an unabashed enthusiast for everything Joyce has written and you can find plenty of evidence for that in the hours of my life that I have spent not only reading his books as a student, but also blogging my adventures with Ulysses, with Finnegans Wake, and a reprise of my love of Dubliners. So I loved reading about the father of James Joyce, and his various manifestations in Ulysses, especially since Joyce had a generous view of his father’s undoubted failings.
By contrast, Stanilaus Joyce, James’ brother, has nothing good to say of his father’s fecklessness and abusive behaviour in his books My Brother’s Keeper (1958) and The Complete Dublin Diary of Stanislaus Joyce (1971).

My father was still in his early forties, a man who had received a university education and had never known a day’s illness. But though he had a large family of young children, he was quite unburdened by any sense of responsibility towards them. His pension, which could have taken in part the place of the property he had lost and been a substantial addition to an earned income, became his and our only means of subsistence. (p.166)
He is domineering and quarrelsome and has in an unusual degree that low, voluble abusiveness characteristic of Cork people when drunk… He is lying and hypocritical. He regards himself as the victim of circumstances and pays himself with words. His will is dissipated and his intellect besotted, and he has become a crazy drunkard. He is spiteful like all drunkards who are thwarted, and invents the most cowardly insults that a scandalous mind and a naturally derisive tongue can suggest. (p. 167)

But James Joyce was magnanimous, partly but not entirely because he was at a distance in Trieste. He wrote to his benefactor Harriet Weaver:

I was very fond of him always, being a sinner myself, and even liked his faults. Hundreds of pages and scores of characters in my books came from him… I got from him his portraits, a waistcoat, a good tenor voice, and an extravagant licentious disposition (out of which, however, the greater part of any talent I may have springs) but, apart from these, something else I cannot define. (p.173.)

The chapter about Joyce’s father, despite his manifest faults, is a pleasure to read because Tóibín considers at some length the ways in which Joyce pays homage in his fiction to this flawed father.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/11/20/mad-bad-dangerous-to-know-the-fathers-of-wil... ( )