A World I Never Made (Drama) (Fiction)

by James T. Farrell (Writer) Charles Fanning (Introduction) 

Publisher: University of Illinois Press; revised ed. edition (March, 2007)

Softcover, 440 pages. 



            “He watched the lady, swayed. Well, wasn’t that something to put in your pipe and smoke! What the hell was he, a bluebeard, or a Blackhand? Why, goddamn her. She was probably the wife of some rich dude and she named her kids Percy. It kind of made him wish that some guy would grab her, drag her across the street in the prairie and give her five or six inches of what her dude husband probably didn’t have to give her.”

This somewhat hyperbolic title ushers in the first novel in Farrell's quintilogy on the O'Neil - O'Flaherty families in Chicago. Specifically, it follows Danny O'Neil who rises up from the Irish slums to become a successful lawyer.

Some have criticized Farrell’s writing style, claiming that it's repetitive, and too dependent on dialogue, while being short in action. It's true most of the scenes are dialogues between characters and in their speech we discover what has happened in-between the previous speech. However, that doesn’t diminish the skill of the writing. It enhances it if anything. He keeps the drama in-house and demonstrates the world through the family's eyes.

As for repetitious, his style becomes lyrical and lilting as it continues on. The back-and-forth between characters becomes a lullaby that drifts the characters through life. The gift of gab was part of the lifeblood of the old Irish tradition and it flows deep here.

Author, James T. Farrell

Set in 1911, the story captures the feel and smell of the Irish families as they claw to survive and prosper. It's fascinating to read of their problems. Often they are the same problems we face today. Money, sex, properly raising children, etc. Even the political debates between Democrats and Republicans, while removing the specific names (Taft was in the White House at this time), could happen today. The Republicans are said to be in the pockets of big business and the Democrats are said to be idealistic talkers, incapable of getting things done, relying on symbolic gestures.

The two families represent the split of the Irish in the race’s journey through America. The O'Flaherty are the Lace Curtain Irish who use the resources of this new land to educate the next generation so they can be better off and rise above the poverty impressed on them by the English in their native land. While the O'Neils are Shanty Irish, poorly educated, too many children, slovenly in their ways, poor hygiene. They are incapable, or unwilling, to better themselves and will eventually become known as “white trash”.

Danny O'Neil, here seen only as a child, is a product of both worlds. Born into the poor family, he is taken in by his upwardly mobile relations due to his parent’s appalling poverty. Eventually, he will rise above it all. Danny O'Neil is the protagonist foil to the author's other great work, Studs Lonigan. Studs is a dumb Irish brute born to a decent middle class family, whose fortunes spin downwards into an eventual early grave.

Original cover of the 1st edition. 

Farrell wished this series of books to have a more upbeat end. His work (along with Jim Tully's) centralized the Irish-American Catholic experience in the forefront of the drama, rather than them being a minor part or just comic relief. It started a trend of Irish centered novels and films which proliferated the 40s and 50s.

But let me give those who are interested a warning. Farrell showed the ways of the old school Irish as he knew it, warts and all. There's plenty in here that might be considered politically incorrect. Racial slurs against all abound and the characters almost uniformly show a dislike for all who weren't Irish and Catholic. Well, that was the old ways. Entire countries run on a small town mentality.

For your general information, the term “dude” used above in the excerpt is an insult, rather than just a common type of expression like it is now. Back in the day it meant a man who spent an unmanly amount of time primping himself up, worrying about his clothes and so forth.  It originated in 1883 and used in reference to the devotees of the "aesthetic" craze. Later on it was applied to all city slickers, especially Easterners vacationing in the West.
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.