What do You think about The Crock Of Gold (Revised Edtion) (2006)?
This is a witty story that reads, for large swaths, like someone telling you a story over a campfire. Very unselfconscious; very unconcerned with prosaic acrobatics. It's got a plot, and it's charming and entertaining enough, but the plot is threaded through with long conversations that are really fun reading. I highlighted more passages in this book than any other I've ever read, and nearly all of the passages were inconsequential--it was just full of fun sentences and sayings that I want to remember.
—Jason Downey
I listed this book although I don't own a copy now. I read it at my college library, perhaps out of curiosity piqued by its small hardbound copy, old and classical-looking, or maybe by the opening lines quoted here in Goodreads, which I have completely forgotten. But although I've forgotten the words, the magical glow of the experience of reading it comes back anytime I think of the book itself. And the sad part was I never read anything else of James Stephens since then. It was also the time when I was reading every William Butler Yeats poem I could find, and I found resonances in the older poet's "Song of the Wandering Angus." Thus not only did Stephens introduce me to Irish mythology (and his playful version of it), but The Crock of Gold is one of the books that first delighted me with endless possibilities of thought and language. I will try to find a new copy of it.
—Marne
An Irish fairy tale that is at times deep, dense, diverse -- and can be quite funny. The plot is fairly simple, and the theme can be condensed to "Don't Mess With Leprecauns". But the book takes a path that is anything but direct, with philosophical essays and stories-within-the-story. Stephens was a poet and it shows in his prose, with paragraphs that are quite lyrical and poetic. Sometimes the philosophical "tangents" get a bit dense -- similar to Melville and Conrad, but with a decidedly Irish twist. But Stephens quickly returns to the plot, including some memorable characters and scenes. Written in 1912, I think this book is best understood within the context of its times as a celebration of Irish culture and mythology.
—Rob
