SatireThe appeal of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is predicated on a single, simple fact: there are people in this country, mostly living in south Dublin, who have too much money and too little sense.
They drive cars designed for deserts and prairies through quiet and leafy suburbs; they drink coffees with five- syllable names; they are constitutionally incapable of pronouncing the "t" at the end of "right". They are more likely to spend €50 on a taxi than €1.50 on a bus ticket. When they shop for groceries, "they don't want virgin olive oil; they want virgine olive oil, which is the same as the other stuff but costs €11 per bottle".
It's a one-joke concept, but that joke has lasted through six bestselling volumes of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's exploits and adventures, following him as he passes through secondary school, UCD, career, marriage, and fatherhood.
Now his creator, Paul Howard, has tried something a little different: a guide to south Dublin as Ross and his cronies know it, modelled on the Rough Guides, complete with a "ThesauRoss" to help translate the impenetrable argot of the well-off south Dubliner, and advice on how to get by on €10,000 a day.
It's a bold attempt to expand the O'Carroll-Kelly canon, more accessible than the earlier books to those unfamiliar with the speech and habits of the SUV-driving classes. Ross himself does not narrate, only appearing in occasional sidebars, as do his friends Fionn the know-it-all, Christian the Star Wars fan, Oisinn the perfumier and JP the trainee priest. This makes the Guide easier to read than the previous volumes, but something is lost in the process.
A great deal of the humour of the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly books comes from Ross's distinctive voice - that oh-so-recognisable combination of arrogance, complete lack of self-consciousness, and bizarre slang. The Guide to South Dublin is written in a faux-objective voice that blunts the edge of Howard's satire. This flattening effect is helped along by the use of bold type to highlight significant phrases - a stylistic trick that makes sense in genuine guidebooks, where it helps the reader pick out information quickly, but in a humorous book like this it has the effect of telegraphing the punchlines and softening their impact. And that's when there is a punchline: for a satirical book, there's a surprising amount of purely factual information here that is not particularly funny in itself, nor is it presented in a funny way. For instance, here's the entry on Graham Knuttel: "Sylvester Stallone saw Knuttel's work on a visit to Ireland a few years ago and ordered just about every painting he had in his workshop. Now South Dublin can't get enough of his work either." Well, yes. And? Is that supposed to be funny? And if it's not supposed to be funny, what's it doing in this book?
THIS IS A problem throughout the book. The funniest parts of the Guide to South Dublin are the parts that take Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's typical bluntness and apply it to targets he's too self-involved or not bright enough to aim for, carefully treading the fine line between fact and fantasy. Thus we have the Guide on Foxrock: "Foxrock has no roads named after republican heroes - dying for Ireland was always considered a terribly working class idea here." On Blackrock College: "Among its famous alumni are Eamon de Valera and John Charles McQuaid, former Taoiseach and former Archbishop of Dublin respectively, who helped shape modern Ireland - or, rather, the Ireland that came before modern Ireland, which to be honest was a bit of a shithole." And on the 46A: "The 46A also passes through Monkstown during a long and circuitous journey that also takes in Ayers Rock, Angkor Wat and the Puerto Moreno Glacier."
The book is peppered with gems like this. Unfortunately, there are long stretches that aren't that funny, either because they're too factual or because they're not factual enough. Fionn's sidebars are dry recitations of supposedly interesting (but really quite dull) facts about South Dublin; Christian's are speculations about Star Wars that not only have nothing to do with South Dublin but also don't resemble the ramblings of any Star Wars fan I've ever met.
THERE ARE SOME startling moments in the book, as when the list of things to say at southside dinner parties includes "There's something about Michael McDowell I just don't trust", and "Isn't Joe Higgins great, all the same? I'd never vote for him, but he's really good for politics". This makes the timing of the book's publication both fortunate and unfortunate: on the one hand, the results of the recent election make it clear that Howard has his finger on the pulse, but on the other hand, these references, prescient as they seem now, are instantly out of date - the curse of the satirist.
Overall, the book is funny, but not quite funny enough, and clever, but not quite clever enough. Perhaps it would have worked better if it had been half as long. Howard's half-cutting, half-affectionate satire is best appreciated in small doses. Over 250 pages, the one joke that is Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's south Dublin wears exceedingly thin.
Katherine Farmar is a freelance writer and born-and-bred Dublin southsider.
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly's Guide To South Dublin By Paul Howard Penguin, 264pp. £12.99