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Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know
Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce | Colm Toibin
5 posts | 3 read | 7 to read
From Colm Tibn, the formidable award-winning author of The Master and Brooklyn, an illuminating, intimate study of Irish culture, history, and literature told through the lives and work of three menWilliam Wilde, John Butler Yeats, and John Stanislaus Joyceand the complicated, influential relationships they had with their complicated sons. Colm Tibn begins his incisive, revelatory Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know with a walk through the Dublin streets where he went to universitya wide-eyed boy from the countryand where three Irish literary giants also came of age. Oscar Wilde, writing about his relationship with his father, William Wilde, stated: Whenever there is hatred between two people there is bond or brotherhood of some kindyou loathed each other not because you were so different but because you were so alike. W.B. Yeats wrote of his father, John Butler Yeats, a painter: It is this infirmity of will which has prevented him from finishing his pictures. The qualities I think necessary to success in art or life seemed to him egotism. John Stanislaus Joyce, Jamess father, was perhaps the most quintessentially Irish, widely loved, garrulous, a singer, and drinker with a volatile temper, who drove his son from Ireland. Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tibn recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.
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jenniferw88
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OriginalCyn620 ☘️💚☘️ 4y
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review
Palimpsest
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Pickpick

Another non-fiction that caught my eye at the library thanks to the famous phrase. This book is not about Byron, however, but about the fathers of Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, and James Joyce and how they played a part in the works of their sons. I enjoyed this quick book and it makes me interested to read more about the authors themselves and more of their works than I already have read.

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jenniferw88
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#bookhaul - bottom 2 from charity shops, top 2 Waterstones. Tagged book is signed!

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shortsarahrose
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Pickpick

This was a fascinating, quick read (or rather, listen, since it was a #audiobook). Toibin sometimes seemed to stray from his stated purpose (showing how the fathers affected the writing of Wilde, Yeats, and Joyce), yet I didn‘t mind because I was taken by what he was saying.

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shortsarahrose
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I need an #audiobook for my Sunday plans of drinking coffee and doing laundry. At only six hours long, I might even be able to finish this one today.

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