Titley by Máirtín Coilféir (review)

Alan Titley is undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in contemporary Irish-language literature. In a career that has spanned over five decades, he has published novels, short stories, poetry, plays, and literary criticism. He has also been a columnist with the Irish Times for many years, thereby contributing greatly to cultural and political discourse in Ireland. Titley has recently gained more widespread acclaim due to his English translations of two prose works by twenty-first-century writer Máirtín Ó Cadhain: The Dirty Dust (2015) and The Dregs of the Day (2019). Given the extent of Titley’s contribution to Irish literary life, he has received relatively little attention by critics and scholars. Máirtín Coilféir’s first monograph, Titley, goes a long way toward rectifying this neglect. The book surveys the author’s entire body of work from 1966 to 2016 and examines the key facets of his writing in depth.

Coilféir explains in his introduction that he will be engaging in what philosopher Noël Carroll terms “ethical criticism.” Throughout the book, Coilféir focuses on the ethical principles that underpin Titley’s writing, and the ethical questions his works raise. Coilféir argues that certain values, most notably independence and self-expression, are fundamental to the author’s earliest writings and have remained to the fore in his many publications over the years. Titley consistently advocates the expression of one’s unique self and the freedom of the individual from any authority that would seek to curtail such expression. These values are the foundation both of his political views and of his views on literature—he sees them as the sine qua non of life and art. Coilféir suggests that many thematic and stylistic elements of the author’s work (such as his critique of capitalism or his subversion of traditional notions of genre) stem directly from this ethical perspective. In Coilféir’s assessment, Titley’s profound respect for freedom and individuality lies at the heart of all his writing.

Another cornerstone of Coilféir’s analysis is his emphasis on Titley’s texts themselves rather than their various contexts. He does not attempt to contextualize the author’s oeuvre historically, or to trace the literary and philosophical movements that have shaped Titley’s ethical values (though he does identify relevant thinkers and concepts in passing). Instead, he largely allows Titley’s writing to serve as its own interpretive framework. For instance, Coilféir shows that Titley’s nonfiction, particularly his long-standing weekly column with the Irish Times, often sheds light on aspects of his fiction. Conversely, Coilféir argues that reading Titley’s fiction, drama, and poetry enables us to better understand the opinions expressed in his articles. We see this most clearly in the case of Titley’s 1978 work Méirscrí na Treibhe. The novel provides a vivid portrayal of the effects of colonialism, a topic Titley has often discussed in his role as columnist. By high-lighting various examples of this kind of overlap, Coilféir demonstrates that there are thematic commonalities among many of Titley’s otherwise disparate works.

Coilféir is at his most perceptive when discussing the significance of humor and intertextuality in Titley’s writing. While he acknowledges the entertainment value of the wordplay, comic irony, and literary allusions synonymous with the author’s style, he convincingly argues that these techniques play other, more important roles too. He contends, first, that Titley often uses humor to hammer home a serious message. This is especially true of the derisive humor found in Titley’s articles on literature or current affairs. Coilféir also offers a nuanced analysis of the bawdy humor found in such works as Eiriceachtaí agus Scéalta Eile (1987) and Leabhar Nóra Ní Anluain (1998). In his view, this Rabelaisian streak serves to convey a particular truth about humanity: by drawing attention to the less pleasant aspects of the body (its odors, orifices, and excretions), Titley reminds us that...