Onion Eaters

by J.P. Donleavy

The Onion Eaters is a novel in which an extraordinarily endowed young man named Clayton Claw Cleaver Clementine comes to take possession of an ancient castle on the rocky coast of Ireland.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Irish Literature, Classics, Novels, American, Sexuality

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

James Patrick Donleavy was an Irish American author, born to Irish immigrants. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II after which he moved to Ireland. In 1946 he began studies at Trinity College, Dublin, but left before taking a degree. He was first published in the Dublin literary periodical, Envoy.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.P._Don...

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Onion Eaters is a rich and colourful extravaganza fraught with wicked acrimony and picturesque rancour.

A cold misty rain descends streaking the windows down an empty shopping street. The university baleful behind its great iron gates, a light in the porter’s lodge, a faint yellow beacon at the end of a street where the massive porticoes of the bank shelter lurking figures on this barren Saturday afternoon.
Two orange beaked swans paddling up stream under an iron foot bridge arching over a river’s sour green waters. At a black door up three stone steps this grey coated gaunt figure looks east and west along the quays. To the slate roof tops and chimney pots puffing smoke over the city. Where a shaft of sunlight spreads, glistens and disappears.

Language is J.P. Donleavy’s luxuriant palette and he writes a book as though he paints a picture.
Onion eater is an antonym of lotus-eater and the characters of the novel live in a dilapidated castle enjoying bitterness and penury as if they lived on an exotic tropical island of Lotophagi.

Voices saying goodbye. Feet moving down the hall. Steps down the stairs. Shutters closed. Battened down. Lie here. Not so much in sorrow or self inflicted bitterness. But just ready for another Tuesday. To say to everyone. Pardon my disfigurement. Wrought by the constant fear of snake bite blast and bullfight. And a double robbery recently of pieces of arse. One elegant the other low slung.

Bitterness turns sweet with sexual freedom galore…

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reminded me of The Cat in the Hat, the premise of which (in case you’ve never read it) is: a brother and sister are alone at home when they hear a loud bump which is quickly followed by the arrival of the Cat in the Hat, a tall, anthropomorphic feline in a red and white striped hat and a red bow tie who proposes to entertain the children with some tricks he knows and then proceeds to wreak havoc. There’s not much of a plot but it does have point or at least a moral.

In The Onion Eaters Clayton Clementine, who sounds like he’s been lifted straight out of a children’s novel, has just taken up residence in a castle which he has recently inherited following the death of his great aunt. The dilapidated Gothic monstrosity comes with a small staff who, as acting butler Percival, puts it, go with the place:

      We’ve been waiting this long time for sign of you to come. Every Christmas the table has been set. Miss Ovary has done in the kitchen down there for donkey’s years. Oscar the boy is trained by meself. Ena and Imelda are apprenticed parlour maids. There hasn’t been much doing here since her ladyship left and no grander lady lived, God bless her. Meantimes we do be putting right the odd dilapidation and keeping the portals locked and the intruders at bay if you follow me sir.’
       ‘I’m afraid I simply cannot afford to employ anyone.’
       ‘Ah now sir, who said a thing about employ, wages or the like. We’re content with a roof now and again and a bit of board. When you’ve got a windfall will be time enough for talk of such a nature.’

Imagine if Flann O'Brien had decided to rewrite Kafka’s The Castle and you’re halfway there. It’s a promising start. And then the big bell in the courtyard below rings, a sign that there’s someone at the door only it’s not a cat in a hat or a fox in socks:

‘Excuse me sir, there’s a gentleman from out of a motor car wanting to see you sir. I couldn’t catch the name it being of a foreign sound. It was about accommodation sir. Shall I tell him you are otherwise engaged.’

The gentleman is Erconwald—“Just Erconwald”—who, as Percival correctly gathered, is seeking lodging for himself and his three friends: Rose of Rathgar, Franz Decibel Pickle and George Putlog Roulette. There turns out to be a fourth, the Baron, but he doesn’t appear until the morning along with a surprising amount of baggage:

      Clementine descending the stair into the great hall. A shaft of mid morning sunlight glinting on the display of shields on the north wall. Under which stands Franz Pickle adjusting a surveyor’s tripod. As Erconwald enters the front door carrying a small statue and an apparatus.
       ‘Ah good person, let me welcome you on this fine day and say good morning. How are you.’
       ‘Fine thanks.’
       ‘We are I think now sufficiently unloaded. It would not do for unauthorised persons to handle our equipage and we are storing it in a safe place.’
       ‘I see.’
       ‘Ah good person I perceive some flummoxity upon your countenance. It is we have certain sample minerals, udometers, hydrometers, recent and fossil brachiopoda. Microscope. Geiger counter. Volt meter. Plant specimens. And here I carry Brahma, the Omnipresent One. And this is an oriental water pipe. Ah but why trouble you with such trivial paraphernalia this morning. I entrust you have breakfasted well.’

For some reason Clementine puts up with the invasion as, over the next few days they—and others of their party who appear by and by, Lead Kindly Gently and his wife accompanied by three exprisoners and a slither of poisonous snakes—take over his property. Franz even goes so far as to sink a mineshaft in the front hall. When quizzed Erconwald answers (you really couldn’t call it an explanation): ‘My hope was good person to add pleasure to your life by our presence.’ You can see why The Cat in the Hat sprung to mind. It’s all very silly. And bawdy. I was going to say Doctor Seuss was never bawdy but that’s not strictly true; he penned The Seven Lady Godivas in 1939 but it was a flop.

Silliness has its place but a little goes a long way. The Cat in the Hat compresses its silliness into 64 pages. Imagine that going on for 290 pointless pages. And that’s the point: there isn’t one. At the end of the book Clementine’s houseguests are still there, show no sign of ever leaving and he’s grown accustomed to their ways. We never learn a great deal about Clementine. He has three testicles—a family trait apparently, he’s descended directly in the male line from Clementine of The Three Glands—hails from Chicago and has been in hospital (possibly with depression) but, and the same goes for all the characters, there’s no real depth to him and I never felt myself rooting for him. As fellow Goodreads reviewer Craig Masten puts it so well, “I knew I was in trouble when a gross farting dog was the only one I barely cared about.”

The language is unusual. Donleavy writes in clipped sentences switching from first to third person without warning (in an interview in The Paris Review he claims this as something he invented) and he doesn’t seem to care for question marks or semicolons. For example:

      Two orange beaked swans paddling up stream under an iron foot bridge arching over a river’s sour green waters. At a black door up three stone steps this grey coated gaunt figure looks east and west along the quays. To the slate roof tops and chimney pots puffing smoke over the city. Where a shaft of sunlight spreads, glistens and disappears.
      Push open the door. Go down this dark corridor and knock under a sign. Enquiries. Face moist, toes and hands cold. Damp seeping through my gloves. A girl in a big purple hat and large glad smile looks up from behind a high counter.
       ‘Are you Mr Clementine.’
       ‘Yes.’

In that same interview he explains his logic:

Novelists are at best highbrow reporters who do their own copyediting. I would never think I was superior to a journalist. Never dream of such an outrageous thing! I’m astonished, picking up the daily New York newspapers to find the splendour of the writing and the marvellous stories. It’s amazing. Being a good novelist really comes down to being a good newspaper reporter; you’re trying to get what you’ve written on your page into a reader’s mind as quickly as possible, and to keep them seeing it. That is why I use the short, truncated, telegraphic sentences. They are the most efficient use of language, and I think the brain puts words together the way I do.

You get used to it but it doesn’t exactly flow. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some wonderful turns of phrases because there are and, much like early Beckett (I’m thinking Dream of Fair to Middling Women) he delights in twisting language to his own ends. Which is why I read half the book, maybe a little more, before jumping to the end to see how it all ended and it’s been a long time since I’ve given up on a book after investing so much time but I don’t regret it; there’re far more interesting books out there to read.

It bothers me that I can only give this one two stars because it’s obvious the guy can write. Maybe sometime I’ll try him again because I didn’t hate him. Had he crammed this story into 64 pages I’d probably be forcing copies on all my friends.

[Angelika · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fever dream. A fever nightmare. One of the strangest, maddest books I've ever read.
And it was also one of the hardest to rate.
In spite of being written by an American, this novel features the kind of mad, all-over-the place, creepy British humor that I can only digest in small doses.
Basically, it's about a guy called Clementine of the three Glands who has inherited a castle where he intends to live. In the course of the story all kinds of crazy looking and crazy acting people seek entrance to Clementine's new home which turns out to be a hellish zoo rather than a place of refuge.
Lots of overly formal language, but also lots of British slang, lots of sexual innuendo and sexual activity. A mad scientist, a "spiritual" madman, a kind of butler, employees that are happy not to get paid because they love the place, debts, debts, debts, people exploiting Clementine, terrible beasts, bulls, snakes, a sea creature.... on and on and on it goes....the only straight man, surprisingly, is Clementine, but only compared to all the others....the way women are partly depicted is problematic to say the least....some very much sexualized (though also very active), some overly naive, some gold-digging etc etc etc...but since the men are also not depicted in the most favourable way, it stands to debate whether in the context of the story this is ok or not. For the sake of comedy there is definitely a lot of exaggeration.
Donleavy's writing style is highly original. Rather than going for classic narration with main and subordinate sentences he mainly chooses Infinitives and Gerunds which evokes a sense of the impersonal, but also speeds up the pace. Both makes sense. Clementine is not in control of what is happening, he seems to be a character in a terrible dream, not his own person. Probably the whole story is just Clementine's fever dream, now that I think about it, nothing seems real. On a few occasions he recalls being very sick and fighting against death. Lying in a hospital bed slowly dying....especially on the last 100 pages I was ever more convinced of this suspicion. Those pages read like the fight (against death) is almost over, but there is still some way to go, the language changes, (as it does throughout), it becomes poetic while still feverish, but the battle is not mad anymore, it feels more like those dreams in which you can't move forward although you really try hard....
A controversial book, definitely not for everybody....

[Justin Howe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A man with three testicles inherits a castle on the coast of Ireland. The book reads like Hunter S. Thompson meets Mervyn Peake, or National Lampoon's Animal House in Castle Gormenghast. Parts are funny - but it meanders with one chaotic misadventure after another going on for too long.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Donleavy in years; he used to be a favorite I’ve never read the less famous ones (or fairylales or Darcy) and while now I can see he sort of writes the same book over and over: I like the book he writes over and over. Especially the way he writes them.

[robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favorite J.P. Donleavy novel, although I can't quite say why. It's not perfect, but it's sweet and spit-take funny. I've read it twice, and I rarely read anything twice.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a bawdy book. it made me smile.

[Peter Staadecker · Rating 5 out of 5]

My younger self definitely gave this 5 stars. Haven't read it in years. Probably time to reread and see how it holds up.

[Adrian Fingleton · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this book had not been chosen by my book club, I'd almost certainly never have finished it. It's as if the author decided 'what do I need to do to get this book banned' and the doubled down on everything that fitted that requirement. A bawdy, sex-filled, crude romp with occasional echoes of Ulysses (somehow), reminiscent of the movie Withnail and I, definite shades of racism, sexism, misogyny, scatology, crude Oirish characterisations, (I think) bestiality, and just general offensiveness. I know it has it's admirers, but I'm not one of them. Two stars for mercifully being reasonably short.

[Jay Storey · Rating 5 out of 5]

June 2021. Not sure why I only gave this book a 4 rating before. It's one of my favourite books. I've fixed the error.

I first read this book when I was traveling (many years ago), and I absolutely loved it. I quoted from it to my traveling companion so many times he got sick of it. It has a strange, absurd sort of humour that I really love, and some bizarre characters that I think are truly original.

[Anoosha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most strangest book I've ever read. Disorienting at first but as you keep reading, you see the brilliance of Donleavy's writing.

One of the most bizarre, vulgar and ridiculously funny books! Loved it. :)

[Flan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just reread this after over 20 years. I still enjoyed it. It is a nice combination of bawdy and tender.

[Stephen Fothergill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite simply the funniest book ever written. Extraordinary!

[Spero · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was a mix of Salinger meets Vonnegut, meets Dahl. Nicely odd.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the Beatitudes, read it for the prose. Strictly a male writer, though not so sure he is writing for people as much as for sound, alliteration, allusion, humor.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dazzling. Hilarious. Unique. Gorgeous. A massive firework display of mad beauty.

[Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Onion Eaters" is a novel that will both tickle and exasperate you. Uproariously funny and crude at times, it is also written in an obscure style that meanders at times and also defies all rules of popular narration and prose. For example, there are no question marks in the text and the narrator refers to himself as either I, me, or his given name (Mr.) Clementine. The story is also purposely vague of the actual location and time period, although one can speculate it's the northern UK some time after WWII.

Now that all of that's out of the way, I should also add that, essentially, this is a book with no discernible plot. Instead, the story revolves around Clementine (a man, I must mention, with three testicles) and the odd cast of characters who invade and take residence within his newly inherited castle. The novel is filled with outrageous, Monty Python-like mayhem, numerous hilarious sexual encounters, and oddballs of both the male and female persuasion. While the story starts off in a fairly straightforward way, it gradually gets stranger and stranger and, to be honest, harder to absorb. Some writers ask readers to meet them halfway; Donleavy wants us to do nearly all of the heavy lifting.

"The Onion Eaters" is not for everyone and is, to be honest, hard to recommend. With a stronger ending, I would have granted it four stars.

[Katie Bliss · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hm, this book wasn't my cup of tea. It was a bit on the incoherent side,though I followed it well enough. A man inherits a castle from his great aunt (his only living relative), finds it occupied with some servants, in a bit of disrepair, and throughout the story many colorful characters invite themselves over to live there and partake of his food and wine that he cannot afford. He also happens to be endowed with three testicles (hence his name, Clementine of the Three Glands), and everyone is very obsessed with not just his but their own and everyone else's private parts. A nasty business.

[Stephanie Baird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was a very odd book. Was there much plot? Not really. Was there a lot of unusual sexual activity, including a protagonist with three testicles? Yes.
Donleavy loves to write in short, incomplete sentences, which sometimes made reading this book feel very choppy and hard to follow. The writing was very clever, though, and I do want to re-read it sometime to focus more on all his turns of phrase, because maybe there is some plot in there somewhere if you can follow what he's saying.
This book is purely enjoyable for the weird vibes and complete nonsense.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

A lot of the other reviewers seem to be men. Was it the fact that this is a book about a man with three testicles that made them so keen to read it?
I abandoned this very early on. I couldn’t stand the way that it jumped between first and third person pronouns in different paragraphs. Just too weird, especially the dog. Why let it eat all bar one of the house keys? That’s 50p in library fees wasted.

[Geoff Sheehan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this quite some time ago. It is not a run of the mill novel, but enjoyable once you get your head around it. Probably best to give it a wide berth if you are easily offended.

[Sam Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical Donleavy. A charming hero, lots of sex, lots of excrement, lots of Irish weather. It's amusing, and the scenes are well orchestrated, but minor.

[Daniel Mallon · Rating 1 out of 5]

What can I say but a book story going nowhere.

[David Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

More unhinged than The Ginger Man. A complete bacchanal.

[Lutz Barz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of a spurious start, then rambles on. If that is your cup of tea, fine. I gave up

[David Wachter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donleavy at his chaotic best.

[Jasmine Macpherson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am so glad I’m finished 🧅

[Joseph Sobanski · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this up at a used book store since the premise was promising, and I love me some low brow humor. The premise is the protagonist inherits a castle, which quickly becomes an overrun with uninvited guests. Oh and our protagonist also inherited the family trait of an extra testicle. With lines like "testicular trinity," what could go wrong?

But in the end the humor was too raunchy/horny (sort of like Austin Powers on steroids) for me, and there were very few parts I actually found funny. Add to that, the story was mostly non-existent, with events just sort of happening around the protagonist, making this read a real chore to get through. There was just very little I could find redeemable about this novel, it feels like a novel trying to be scandalous, but perhaps time has diluted its impact. 1.5/5 rounded down.

[Craig Masten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Onion Eaters is the first book I've read of by J.P. Dunleavy, even ilthough I'll admit I've forgotten many of the books I've read. I'll come upon one such on a bookshelf crammed with my underlinings of memorable passages, as is my wont, but have no memory of having read it; or I'll realize after fifty or a hundred pages that it is becoming too familiar because I've been there before.
I believe I'd have remembered The Onion Eaters though. It is one strange dude of a book. Witty at times perhaps, capable of moving insights, most often sad; bawdy but in no way erotic, often scatalogically buggery crude; though also can be poignantly tender, almost as if to surprise; wonderful in its descriptive language setting mood, inventive in its use of conversational dialogue, yet in the service of a bizarre meandering plot. Worst of all for the sake of a reader, interesting but unbelievable characters, unlikable most of the time. I knew I was in trouble when a gross farting dog was the only one I barely cared about.
I have to admit, nonetheless, to underlining many evocative passages, a book more poetry than prose, and maybe burlesque comedy. Both bored and fascinated, I sometimes laughed, sometimes felt huge melancholy. Try to make sense of this review if you can. I accept the book is a critically accepted serious novel, but absurdist to a huge degree, and not a good thing to be skipping over many pages of its loopy happenings. Tiresome long stretches speckled with nuggets of interesting language is what to expect. Which is not really saying what the experience is like. I can't really explain this thing. I give up.

[Bob Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want a synopsis, read any of the other reviews.
Five star reviews on how funny it is through to one stars telling how egregiously bad it is.
In my opinion, it is a morality tale, telling you to watch out should you ever come into money.
There are thieves, chancers and unscrupulous vagabonds masquerading as friends, ready and waiting to lighten your bank account around every corner.
Many reviews state that the story is rambling without any direction or purpose. That would be life, and this guide book shows you how to tiptoe around these pitfalls and unscrupulous or dishonest opportunists.
'Old money' keeps its wealth because they know when to tell the interlopers to f#^>off. The 'noblesse oblige'. Whereas the nouveau riche squander and fritter away their wealth in being generous, kind and friendly leaving them open to the abuses of the great unwashed. 'The nueveau riche oblige'.
I read this forty-two years ago, and again this week. Brilliant both times.