Having visciously ensnared every opinion as yet posted upon this board, I am inclined to agree.

I also am of the opinion that this is the greatest book that I have ever read only just after the beastly beatitudes (also by JPD). And, I too wanted to be like Mr Smith the thought that he can have everything that he wants was at first, inconcievable that JPD can have created a character who can be capable of all success and ambition, so unlike Balthazar B.

So I pondered, what does he want and can he have it?

What does he want? He wants Miss Tomson and gets her in a way. He wants to be able to handle himself and he gets this. He wants to feel power and will once he dies but until then, he has to make do with the sound of thirtyfive thousand cheers.

So, yes I now agree that he can have most all which he desires. Naturally one wants to feel welcome, now I feel awkward Sorry for spouting I feel;

all dog all dead

I wish I had written this book, but I didn't, so I'm glad he did. On the rare occasion I bring the title up I am not surprised to find that no one's ever even heard of it's author. I wish someone had so we could say to eachother "god, that's a freakin great book. Straight right man." and laugh inside our souls.

It's a perfect story, but not the kind I would read to my nieces or buy for my grandmother. I still recommend it to anyone who has ever thought that something's not quite right and they can't decide if the people they meet are really as convoluted and arrogant as they think, or if maybe it's just them.

Anyone wants to read the greatest book of their life, well this might be it, so don't think too hard and try it.

Hail to the King J.P. Donleavy

Donleavy's humor insists there is something to laugh about in this world, but then you realise that what you are laughing out-loud at is, at best, something disgusting, or rude, or utterly insane... chicken soup for the soul.

Balthazar B. is an aristocrat bewildered at every turn by life. His picaresque journey from Paris to Trinity College Dublin and visitations to country estates and among women of high and dubious social standing is hilarious to behold. The randy foil figure of Beefy may stand as one of the greatest comic figures since Shakespeare's Fat Jack Falstaff. The literary style of Donleavy is itself richly laden with lyricism and poetry and comedy. It is a uniquely pointillistic style in which brush strokes are applied to the canvas with precision and clarity in truncated and non-traditonal but accessible syntax. Like most truly great writers Donleany evokes all of the reader's senses in his work. He also succeeds in arousing sympathy, hilarity, tenderness, grief -- a full range of sensibilities that engage the reader. Each character is roundly drawn and speaks with a unique voice and range of experience. Donleavy's Ginger Man is named among the Random House Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century. He is a supremely talented story teller with an enchanting narrative style that will leave you wanting to read more. Don't miss this novel, The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman and the Singular Man -- they are all pleasant and richly satisfying literary treasures.

A splendid book about one Balthazar B, gentleman at large. Donleavy's writing sparkles with wit, humor and charm, and yet he never shies from the experiences that make Balthazar (and all of us) human: the pursuit of sex and the loss of true love. Balthazar is no cardboard hero for whom everything goes right.

This book was my introduction to J. P. Donleavey and I didn't know quite what to expect. Early on the book had me laughing out loud, yet throughout there is a strong undercurrent of sadness.

The portion devoted to Balthazar's time at Trinity reminded me of both "Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis, and "The Water Method Man" by John Irving. Donleavy uses the academic setting to create situations with a tremendous amount of humor and a profound sense of loneliness and alienation simultaneously.

This introduction led me to pick up four more by Donleavy. The emotion of the book stayed with me for a long time afterward.

J.P. Donleavy's narrative voice is unique. Setting him apart from all other writers. With a lyrical pointillism that is fragmented. Painting pictures of incredible poetic beauty. Sad and tender. And then, again, hilarious. Evoking all of one's senses. This tale is very New York. Where Donleavy was born. Before moving to Ireland, TCD and the Irish countryside. His subject, this time, is a starving composer living among wealthy friends and in-laws. Tormented by every woman he meets. Unable to understand just one of them. Even briefly. Bewildered by popular American culture. Which rains fortunes on untalented artists. Hiding the gifted in total obscurity. And starving them into anonymity. They await redemption. And recognition of their artistic merit. As the astonishing talents of Donleavy go unrecognized by the literary mainstream. Read Donleavy -- one of the most gifted and worthy and unheralded writers of our day.

Of all the novels I've read for pleasure or for review purposes during the past decade, none entertained and moved me as much as this splendid novel. At the age of 72, J.P. Donleavy hasn't lost a bit of his ability to pluck a fine elegiac melody on your heartstrings, nor has he lost his lively way with words, that "signature" of sentence fragments that make better English than any other writer's of our time. And here he returns to his home town, New York City, to depict it as no other writer ever has.

What amazes me is that hordes of "readers" are falling all over themselves to buy Tom Wolfe's latest, and so few people are jumping at the chance to savor a truly great novel like this one. There's no justice in the book-buying world.

If you enjoy Donleavy, you should give this novel a try; it's marvelously well-written. If you like his prose style you might conclude, as I do, that he's writing better than ever. The prose is, at times, simultaneously fractured and yet perfectly constructed. A paradox, I know, but that's what Donleavy can pull off at his best. The reviews of the novel will likely (and reasonably enough) focus upon its ribald scenes, characteristic outbursts of blarney, etc., etc...Donleavy has certainly not lost the flair for the comic and absurd scene. Beyond that, however, is an emotional punch that really hangs with you after finishing the book. The scene from with the title is taken is, for instance, quite brief and very powerful.

Steve Vivian

This is, without a doubt, one of the funniest books I've read. Donleavy's bizarre wit and lyrical style are superb. If you enjoy absurd humor, you will love this book.

I am actually a publisher and we have a line called Humour Classics, in which we reissue out of print classics of humour. And a book I read many years ago, that I loved (I love all of J.P. Donleavey - he is one of my all-time favourite writers) is Fairy Tale of New York. I was checking on Amazon to see if it was available and in print. It is. But I was amazed no-one had done a review. SO here goes: it's brilliantly funny, it would make a great film. The action sequences in the funeral parlour are superb. His prose style is pure magic. Read it!

This book was reviewed at the time as "The SOB's Emily Post" and I can't think of a better short description. Absolutely the wittiest and most laugh-out-loud book I've ever read -- and I've read a lot of books. Donleavy careens from one social faux pas and calamity to the next... "On being caught with your best friend's wife"... "On determining that you are on an aeroplane that is about to crash"... and provides true Looking Out for Number 1 self-preservation, the-world-can-bite-me advice. Beautifully crafted, as is all Donleavy's work, sometimes shocking in its juxtaposition of words, and deriving its true impact by couching its directives in the stilted language of the 1930's English Country Folk -- I must advise you: Do NOT read this book in a room or situation that requires silence; otherwise you will try to restrain laughter to such an extent that you'll give yourself a thrombosis. It's the only paperback book that I've guarded and kept for over 20 years.

I found it funny. If one likes Donleavy the book will not disappoint you. If you don't - probably stay away...

We went to Ireland (summer 2001) and every month brought back wonderful memories. The calendar photos are fantastic. We also brought a calender in Dingle but this calendar is much better.

JP Donleavy's The Onion Eaters is his finest and funniest work to date. Matching the brutish comedy of A Singular Man and The Ginger Man, Donleavy's over-endowed Clementine is the perfect character to inherit his great aunt's castle on Ireland's craggy western coast. Expecting peace and solitude in this lonesome outpost, Clementine soon realizes that he is at the center of some strange phenomenon that inexplicably draws strange people to his door, and eventually, into all of his newly-inherited rooms.

His style is forceful, resolute and even-handed. Notice there are no question marks or exclamation points in this work. He writes with a sense of purpose that many of the characters in the book possess, only their purposes range from measuring stranger's genitalia to excavating for minerals all over the castle. Single-minded and yet still multi-functional, Donleay's characters drive the action through twisted tunnels and forgotten rooms of Charnel Castle, itself a marvel of deviously enjoyable design, much like book itself. The seemingly-bottomless wine cellar provides the assembled crowds with enough reason to act irresponsibly, which only furthers the development of the plot.

While Clementine appears to be overwhelmed with it all, a number of intimate encounters keeps his spirits, and other parts as well, from sagging.

It is with a touch of the cap to Donleavy that I say, while onions may make you cry, The Onion Eaters will make you laugh out loud and wish you knew how to get to Charnel Castle.

This was the second Donleavy novel I read back in 1980. Since then I have read all of his novels and biographies. This book is also the reason that i stayed at the Shelbourne Hotel.

Full of gratuitous sex, violence drunken ribaldry, indeed it is almost a training manual for students.

It opens the door to positive thinking and instils in one that when things are really bad, they are not as bad as they are going to get, but never give up.

Learn negotiating skills, if a fist in the gob doesn't work, buy your man a drink.

Sex education, from aristocrats, whores, artists, teachers, plebean masses.

In all an excellent life changing book in which Donleavy displays true comic genius and has caused me hours of laughter.

Darcy Dancer live's among the Irish aristocracy. This seems to be something of an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp as the aristocracy is disorderd, drunk and badly behaved. That said, J.P. Donleavy manages to take havoc and add order, excellent writing and a good plot to a fairly slender novel that had me weeping with laughter throughout. His father chasing him through the house, only to crash through a rotted floor to the waist was perfect and only to be outdone by the fox hunt.

J.P. Donleavy may well be the most hilarious writer on the planet. Darcy Dancer is a Bildungsroman about the coming of age of a young, educated member of the landed gentry in Ireland. He learns about love first- and second-hand through the auspices of a broad range of tutors including the brilliant Mr. Arland, a stablehand named Foxy, the sublime Miss Von B, the artist Clarissa, school chums, butlers and Rashers Ronald. Kildare wanders from one total fiasco of his own making to the next from the hunt and the stables to the mansions of the gentry and private schools and Dublin high society. He always emerges through chance and pluck and the kindness of others none the worse for wear and perhaps slightly wiser. What are we to make of this dubious young "gentleman"? As Kildare correctly surmises: "Every madman thinks everyone else is mad." Donleavy writes with a unique pointillism, using words as brush strokes, that is engaging, endearing and even breathtaking as each chapter ends on a brief poetic note, a pithy line of stacked type. The dialogue is outrageously real and human and uproarious. The character development is precise and each character lives and breathes with a separate unique identity that only a supremely talented writer can render so credibly. Having real nearly all his books, Darcy Dancer is his best: it's truly a well-written, literary comedy. Discover J.P. Donleavy -- possibly the most under-rated writers alive. You'll laugh your head off.

A really good book, but almost too tragic. It still contains typical Donleavy wit, great characters, and the usual Irish, drunken, sexy fun, but this time the tragic love story brings the book down and makes it a bit too depressing.

In his recent autobiography, Gardner Botsford tells that the mother of "Punch" Sulzberger of the NY Times experienced the stop in the mortuary rest room followed by the unexpected legacy that forms the climax of Donleavy's novelette.

Those who have read "The Ginger Man" will not be surprised by Donleavy's quirky style. Those who have not will find that book to be both much longer and much more rewarding.

Our book club chose this book because we all loved the title and could definately relate to the desire to use clean restrooms. This novella traces the ups and downs in Jocelyn's life after her husband leaves her to live with his girlfiend in an apartment on West 67th Street. Jocelyn was educated at Bryn Mawr and lives in a beautiful home on Winnapoopoo Road in Scarsdale, but now her life is about to change dramatically. The book is often sad, sometimes bawdy and always entertaining. I would definately recommend this book and would like to order another by Donleavy.

My book group read this and though it was certainly the shortest book we have read, it led to the longest discussion we've ever had. The protagonist is a women whose husband leaves her for a younger woman. Because of this and some bad decisions on her part she loses her house, country club membership, friends, kids...status in her community and ends up living in a small room in New York, working at a store for minimum wage. She is miserable. Through a very unusual series of events, she regains her wealth only to realize that it's not the money that made her happy, it was her former life and she can not have that back. The ending leaves you thinking for a long, long time. This book is written as the woman thinks and Donleavy's writing style is hard to get used to at first. It is almost as if you are inside her head. This is a book to pass along to friends so that you can talk about it for hours.