The Fabulists Screenplay

Posted on September 18, 2007 | Category: Screenplays, The Fabulists

The Fabulists is set in 1997-98.

TESS is separated but looking after her son ARTHUR, who lives with his father in Fairview, on a daily basis before she returns to her apartment overlooking the Liffey in Dublin.

MUNGO still lives with his wife and two children – though she has frozen him out since he nearly killed them all by drunkenly dropping a cigarette on his son’s bed and starting a fire.

Both are deeply attached to their children.

Thus their recent pasts are painful, the hurt compounded by poverty, and they are reluctant to tell each other about their true selves. Over a cup of coffee in The Winding Stair Bookshop & Café, Mungo, who reads travel books on Spain, hits on the solution of telling a story, disguised as autobiography, of a train journey through the snow-covered Central Plateau.

Intrigued, on their next meeting TESS tells him in turn the fictional story of her life in Berlin, gleaned from letters from her friend MARIAN.

As the love affair progresses, their stories become more deeply rooted in their own lives and obsessively important to them, forming a double narrative and enabling them to confront truths about themselves.

MUNGO moves to Wexford with his wife and family, and TESS becomes more independent, yet they still need each other to finish the stories. The film with TESS and MUNGO applauding President Robinson as she passes in the Presidential Rolls Royce after her inauguration.

The Fabulists is adapted from the novel of the same name.

Casey’s main achievement in The Fabulists lies in his skilful handling of the elements of fact and fantasy, realism and surrealism that make up the novel. Fabulous, seductive fictions are anchored in mundane realities and the compulsion to invent is counterbalanced by the obligation to confront the truth. His geographically centered, metaphorically open narrative allows us to read Tess and Mungo’s journey from immurement to freedom as a parable of a maturing Ireland. The subtlety and ease with which Casey achieves such symmetry between private and public worlds makes The Fabulists an assured and impressive debut.
-Liam Harte Irish Studies Review (Bristol)

If you haven’t read The Fabulists, and I know there are still a few of you out there, it’s available for free download under a Creative Commons licence, or to read online, at its special subsite, or if you want to pop over to The Irish Literary Revival, which I created with poet Patrick Chapman, it’s available there, too, with works from Patrick and other Irish writers. Actually, if you wish, you can also download my last book of poems fromthis site also. See links below.

The Fabulists at Philip Casey’s website

The Fabulists at Irish Literary Revival

» Filed Under Screenplays, The Fabulists

6 Responses to “The Fabulists Screenplay”

1. Patrick Says:
   September 18th, 2007 at 11:00 am

   Coolness, Philip. Looking forward to seeing the movie!

2. PJ Nolan Says:
   September 27th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

   Hi Philip. I’m coming late to this particular game – I just finished reading The Fabulists online last week! Thanks for making it available online. I enjoyed dropping into the world of Tess & Mungo. Brought back memories of a Dublin that seems to have slipped dimensions in 2 decades.

   The associated decrease in secondhand bookshops in Dublin means that finding out of print Irish books is down to whether they show up in the library (where I just came across Mogue Doyle’s book ‘A Moth at the Glass’ or some other unexpected place. Which is why the literary revival site is such a good idea, IMHO. I’ll be popping over there shortly to check out your poems.

3. Philip Says:
   September 27th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

   Thanks for that, PJ. That means a lot. I think it’s being downloaded quite a bit, but not so much feedback, at least not in print. Glad you enjoyed it.

   Nice to discover your very interesting blog. Will link as soon as I get a minute. I missed the Cronin/Toibin interview too – there were so many literary events on last night, in my case the launch of Mickle Makes Muckle, by my German friend Michael Augustin (translated by his wife Sujata Bhatt).

   Enjoy Irish Literary Revival. There’s some nice stuff there and there’ll be more as soon as time allows.

4. William Wall Says:
   March 18th, 2008 at 7:24 pm

   Hi Philip,
   I’m beginning to think there should be a special kind of culture award for the work you do here and on the other sites you maintain (makes you sound like a developer I know). Anyway, I hope The Fabulists makes it to the screen. I’m just about to go exploring now (for the umpteenth time) and expect that as usual I’ll find plenty to fascinate me on the links.
   All the best,
   William

5. William Wall Says:
   March 18th, 2008 at 8:47 pm

   One small point, as an old teacher of mine was inclined to say, the CELTX link doesn’t work. Nor does it work from the Wikipedia page. Is it dead or is it my Mac?

6. William Wall Says:
   March 19th, 2008 at 6:02 pm

   These sums can be quite hard… (9 and 5, for example has always been a blind spot for me).

   I eventually downloaded CELTX, through a very roundabout route. I emailed them and they solved the problem. It looks really good. thanks for the tip.

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