Thursday 3 July 2008
"The Anatomy of a Bore"
A first response to the Quote...Unquote Newsletter from John O'Byrne in Dublin. Forwarded by Nigel Rees.
'Interested to read your piece on Alan Brien. I had no idea he had died - I must have been away on my travels and missed the papers. By sheer coincidence, last night I was reading a 1958 piece by him (a review of The Birthday Party) reprinted in the recent Spectator 180th special anniversary annual. He wrote: "The Birthday Party is like a vintage Hitchcock thriller that has been, in the immortal, tear-stained words of Orson Welles, 'edited by a cross-eyed studio janitor with a lawn-mower'.
Also on my shelf is a great piece, "The Anatomy of a Bore", he wrote for the same magazine in 1963, where he identified the people he least wanted to sit down next to at dinner. He wrote: "The most boring thing about the bore is not just that he is boring, but that he makes you boring too. You can smell him out in any group by tuning into your own conversation."
A great writer - will be missed.'
'Interested to read your piece on Alan Brien. I had no idea he had died - I must have been away on my travels and missed the papers. By sheer coincidence, last night I was reading a 1958 piece by him (a review of The Birthday Party) reprinted in the recent Spectator 180th special anniversary annual. He wrote: "The Birthday Party is like a vintage Hitchcock thriller that has been, in the immortal, tear-stained words of Orson Welles, 'edited by a cross-eyed studio janitor with a lawn-mower'.
Also on my shelf is a great piece, "The Anatomy of a Bore", he wrote for the same magazine in 1963, where he identified the people he least wanted to sit down next to at dinner. He wrote: "The most boring thing about the bore is not just that he is boring, but that he makes you boring too. You can smell him out in any group by tuning into your own conversation."
A great writer - will be missed.'
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