One of my favorite quotations of all time is this one, by Sigmund Freud, about the Irish: "This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."
You may take it to mean whatever you like. I take it to mean that they are already mentally healthy, and why would they not be? They have a fondness of enough drink to take the edge off, a fatalistic attitude about life itself (in short, they don't get their knickers in a twist about much at all, at all), and they have a great time turning words to their advantage.
Ireland has produced platoons of great writers, usually ones who can turn a phrase to make one cry, or laugh. Even day-to-day life is full of the use of language to turn something nasty on its ear. Irony was made for the Irish, or possibly by them.
Not enough to eat? Make Nothing Soup and serve it up with Garbage Salad. (Cute, but real, recipes from an uncle of mine who raised four children in Brooklyn in the 1950s.)
Bloody Brits doing something bloody stupid again? Who bloody cares? They've been the butt of Irish jokes since long before 1916, the start of Irish independence.
Ireland overrun with swarthy foreigners? OK, OK. The Irish have been a little less tolerant of what EU membership has landed them with. But think about it; if they hadn't gotten so prosperous, the disadvantaged hordes wouldn't be seeking Irish jobs. If they're upset about anything, I'd think it was that the middle Europeans lack the finely tuned sense of humor that prevents depression from becoming pathos.
But that's not what this is about. It's about the French equivalent of the 44 Scotland Street series written by Alexander McCall Smith, and starring little Bertie, his horribly pretentious mother, Irene, and his adversary, a shrink named Dr. Fairbairn.
The book in question, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, has been on French bestseller lists for a year. I haven't read it, but I must. I must read it if for no other reason than this: The 12-year-old protagonist, Paloma, is sent to a shrink by a mother not unlike Bertie's. Alone with the shrink, Paloma says, "Listen carefully, Mr. Permafrost Psychologist, you and I are going to strike a little bargain. You're going to leave me alone and in exchange I won't wreck your little trade in human suffering by spreading nasty rumors about you among the Parisian political and business elite."
He believes her, and leaves her alone.
If one author's fiction characters could meet another author's characters, I'd introduce Paloma to Bertie. Bertie is only six, and hasn't yet figured out how to get Dr. Fairbairn to leave him alone...and he's been working on it for four books already.
But Paloma could tell him. Bertie has already pointed out that his mother's pre-session sessions with Fairbairn are longer than his own. And Bertie has announced that his new baby brother looks a lot like Dr. Fairbairn. But Bertie hasn't yet gotten the chops to tell the faker off. (And he is a faker; Fairbairn's most famous case, the one that made his name, was all a bit bogus, as it turns out.)
One really hopes poor, sweet, smart little Bertie will last long enough to tell the big faker off. Bertie has managed, in one book, to get lost alone in Paris for a couple of days and did just fine.
Maybe he ran into Paloma!
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