James Stephens
4 books
- You’ll like the way Stephens makes Irish myth feel mischievous and alive, especially in Fionn’s boyhood, where wisdom arrives through the Salmon of Knowledge rather than solemn instruction. The stories are strange, lyrical, and occasionally abrupt, with gods, warriors, and ordinary people all sharing the same unruly world.
- Mary Makebelieve, a charwoman's daughter drifting through Dublin on daydreams and very little dinner, is easy company, and Stephens writes poverty with a strange lightness that never turns cute. Slim, whimsical, a bit sad underneath.
- You get leprechauns, the god Pan, and a Philosopher who lectures his wife on everything from washing to wisdom, all told in prose that keeps wandering off into odd little sermons. If you like your whimsy with actual ideas underneath, this Irish oddity is lovely company.
- Three angels land in Ireland and fall in with Patsy Mac Cann and his daughter, tramping the roads with a donkey and arguing philosophy over stolen dinners. Stephens balances whimsy and metaphysics like no one else; if The Crock of Gold worked on you, this will.