Puckoon - a novel by Spike Milligan

Back in 1963 Spike Milligan had his first novel published and
immediately swore it would be his last. As we now know, this did not
turn out to be the case, there was still a great deal of material up
the Milligan sleeve; and of course he was already famous as the main
writer of and a major player in the Goon Show, the comedy radio series
which even members of the Royal Family awaited eagerly to be broadcast
on Sunday evenings. On the evidence to that date, it would have been a
reasonable assumption to expect the novel to be funny in that typically
manic Milligan style with lots of colourful characters and improbable
situations and on one level, that's exactly what you get. But on closer
examination, there are also hints of the darker side of Milligan's
outlook on life, most famously manifested almost ten years later in his
book of poetry, Small Dreams of a Scorpion.
The plot alone is enough to make you laugh. Puckoon is a small Irish
village which becomes the victim of a Boundaries Commission decision on
the nuances of the border separating northern and southern Ireland. The
new boundary runs right across the land surrounding Puckoon Church,
thus separating the church in the south from its own cemetery, now in
the north. The first victim of this is the deceased Dan Doonan whose
mourners are told that he must have a passport to cross the border to
his final resting place. From hereon in things get increasingly
chaotic, but basically centre around the villagers decision to try and
reclaim their departed from Protestant territory and a small band of
IRA members who decide that a coffin would be a very handy way to
smuggle explosives across the border.
The most surprising thing about the novel (unless you're totally
unfamiliar with Spike's other work) are the descriptive passages. Amid
the humour they leap at you suddenly from the page; 'Autumn laid a
russet hand over the county. The great summer trees cried their leaves
to the ground; dead, hollow spiders clung transparently to once
geometric webs; swallows enumerate on wires; the golden penny that was
the sun devalued. Wan shafts of sunlight struck Puckoon like old
ladies' uncertain fingers.' Then it's back to the familiar one liners
and twisting jokes that you'd expect, and which I'm not going to quote
here. But then you'll get a bald statement coming from the other half
of the author's personality. Chapter nine begins thus; 'Life is a long
agonised illness only curable by death.' Suddenly you remember
Milligan's lifelong battle with depression and admire even more his
undiminished sense of humour through it all.
The modern reader will have problems with some of the racist
terminology in the book, but I can only quote Milligan from his own
foreword on his behalf; 'Thanks to the human race for being the butt of
all my jokes.' I hope his choice of words here says enough. Puckoon is
one of those books that will make you laugh out loud in public places,
and that's recommendation enough for me, as anyone who can make me
laugh out loud on the train on my way to work is worth their weight in
gold.