Customer Reviews

At Swim-Two-Birds (Irish Literature Series)

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Published in 1939, the same year that James Joyce published Finnegan's Wake, this novel was lauded in its day by Joyce himself, Samuel Beckett, and Graham Greene. A wild concoction involving a completely disjointed narrative, multiple points of view, farce, satire, and parody, this "novel" offers any student of Irish literature unlimited subject matter--and equally unlimited laughs. In this unique experiment with point of view, author Brian O'Nolan has used a pseudonym, Flann O'Brien, to tell the story of the novelist/student N, who tells his own story at the same time that he is writing a book about an invented novelist (Trellis), who is himself developing another story, while Tracy, still another author, tells a cowboy story and appears in the previous narratives.

Believing that characters should be born fully adult, one of the writers tries to keep them all together--in this case, at the Red Swan Hotel--so that he can keep track of them and keep them sober while he plans the narrative and writes and rewrites the beginning and ending of the novel. But even when the primary writer stops writing to go out with his friends, the characters of the other (invented) fictional writers continue to live on in the narrative and comment on writing. Before long, the reader is treated to essays on the nature of books vs. plays, polemics about the evils of drink, parodies of folk tales and ballads, a breathless wild west tale starring an Irish cowboy, the legends of Ireland, catalogues of sins, tales of magic and the supernatural, almanacs of folk wisdom and the cures for physical ills, and even the account of a trial--and that's just for starters.

Totally unique, O'Brien's creation defies the conventions, both of its day and of the present, and even the most jaded reader will be astonished at the unexpected twists the narrative takes. Steeped in the traditions of the Irish story-teller, O'Brien keeps those traditions alive by creating multiple narrators to tell multiple stories simultaneously, while also skewering the very traditions of which he--and they--are a part. Mary Whipple

I first came across Flann O'Brien in the shape of his novel "The Poor Mouth". My University lecturer lent me the book suggesting that his treatment of the subject of the Irish Language might give me some insight on how to approach an essay on Joyce and Beckett's treatment of the same. Whilst it must be said I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, I could see little relationship between what I considered this O'Brien's coarse impudence, and the styles of the undisputed masters of Irish literature in English. My mistake was that I should have read "At Swim-Two-Birds" first. It is here, in his first novel, that O'Brien establishes his right to rank among the heavyweights; his intellectual highground from which he can descend mercilessly upon any batallion of false pride he damned well choses.

Be warned. This is not a book for the lover of Jane Austen romance or a Dickens narrative. Rather, it demands parallels with the likes of Sterne for its sheer structural trickery - (imagine, if you will, the author who writes about an author who writes about an author whose characters revolt against his authorship, in taking over the narrative for themselves), -parallels with Beckett in the subversion of continuity and chronology of plot, and the frustrating of plot development with obsessive attention to mudane detail; parallels with Joyce in respect of the inclusion of historical classicism, here in the shape of the heroes of old Ireland, not least the mad king Sweeney whose inclusion in one of the fleeting strands of narrative rather tenuously povides the title for the novel itself.

Even this torturous attempt at grasping some semblance of what "At Swim-Two-Birds" is about, does not even begin to scratch the surface of the richness of form, of content, of style contained within its too few pages. When you read this book, and you should if you love literature, take your time over every page; bask in its complications; marvel at its ingenuity; guffaw at its hilarity. Before you realise it, it'll be over, and you'll have read one of the most intriguing books ever written. Now what was it about, again?

At Swim-Two-Birds is the first great cult book of the century. Well, maybe the second, after Ulysses. Or possibly the fifth, after Kafka's novels. Oh, never mind. The author, Brian O'Nolan (to give him his real name) wrote it in a fairly desultory manner, handing out bits to his friends and asking them what they thought; he would often change it on their suggestion, not always for the better (as comparisons with early drafts show). It gives the impression of being intricately structured without actually being so, as I found when I adapted it for the stage. In fact, it's structurally a mess, with a hastily tacked-on sentimental ending that was written after O'Nolan's father's unexpected death - the book is always threatening to get really dark, and then fudges it in the wind-up.. The humour is side-splitting the first time round, but it gives diminishing returns (believe me). Far better is his second novel in English, The Third Policeman, written without AS2B's pretensions to modernity and avant-gardism, and, paradoxically, much more genuinely avant-garde.

This is, above all, a funny and playful book, playful with itself and the various conceits of fiction: the suspension of disbelief, the conventions of form, and the pretensions of rhetoric. Think of it as Pirandello meets the Marx Brothers.

"At Swim-Two-Birds" delights in rapid-fire wordplay and sophomoric experimentation (there are three alternative beginnings to the story). O'Brien succeeds in this bombastic flair partly because he doesn't take the literary enterprise--his own included--too seriously. He races along at a Groucho-like pace, only to slow down in wonderfully overwritten and overwrought scenes:

"Together the two strong men, joyous in the miracle of their health, put their bulging thews and the fine ripple of their sinews together at the arm-pits of the stricken king as they bent over him with their grunting red faces, their four heels sinking down in the turf of the jungle with the stress of their fine effort as they hoisted the madman to the tremulous support of his withered legs."

Indeed!

James Joyce praised O'Brien as "a real author, with the true comic spirit," and Graham Greene called this "a book in a thousand....in the line of Tristram Shandy and Ulysses." Like Joyce, O'Brien dazzles us with language and the sheer sound of words. The narrative is interrupted with rhetorical notes ("Name of figure of speech: Litotes [or Meiosis]"), populated by varying narrators "Tour de force by Brinsley, vocally interjected, being a comparable description in the Finn canon:," and buoyed by dialogue that variously recalls 30's screwball comedies,B-movie Westerns, and bad courtroom dramas.

O'Brien himself offers some literary "theory" that illustrates his comic sensibility and offers sly clues for his delighted (and maybe perplexed) reader: "...a satisfactory novel should be a self-evident sham to which the reader could regulate at will the degree of his credulity," and, "Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before--usually said much better (Page 33)." Flann O'Brien's command of--and upending of--narrative forms, and the hilarity of his farce make this an essential addition to any comic library. Then again, I could be wrong.

(Buy it!)

Is Swift's A Tale of a Tub a great novel? Is Carlysle's Sartor Resartus a great novel? Is Tristram Shandy a great novel? Each of these works takes as its basis another form, whether the controversialist pamphlet, the philosophical treatise, or the biography, and comes out the other side with a new type of work, as well as a new work. These books occupy an originary and terminal position: they are the first and the last of their kind. For readers, these works are stones -- either the stones that become the foundations for understanding or the stones that drag them down. At Swim-Two-Birds takes as its foil the popular novel and the Irish renaissance myth discovery and the personal narrative. Why should a novel have only one beginning, O'Brien (aka Brian O'Nolan, aka Brian Nolan -- a man who got into university with a forged interview with John Joyce) asks? Why one ending? If, as some reviewers have suggested, you try to find the "structure," you're missing the point. Trying to mash this book into a novel's mold is misguided, and O'Brien will eventually make that clear. In fact, it is the story of a college student (fictional), who is writing a novel about a man (fictional) who is writing an Irish western (which cannot be). Additionally, the student's translation homework -- tales from the Dun Cow Book -- emerge in a full Lady Gregory parody and begin to interact with the other fictions, and the characters of the Irish Western themselves begin to resent their lots in life. The book plays games on so many levels that reading it the way one reads a novel is useless. This is not about information and straight lines, but about play -- sometimes rough and tumble and sometimes gentle. All of the narrators lie, by the way, and there is always one more frame of fiction beyond the one in action at the moment. Do not buy this book if you're intolerant of play. Do not buy this book if you look at books for "what happens." If, however, you're one of those who enjoys, instead of resents, reading milestones like Sartor Resartus or think that Italo Calvino is extremely sophisticated, this book (not novel) will be the greatest delight the 20th century can offer you.

Wanted: A reader for Flann O'Brien's AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS.
1) Requisites: Forgiveness of the not-very-linear, willingness to suspend disbelief and attachment to conventions, flexibility to take hairpin turns and seeming leaps of logic without a moment's notice, and tolerance of sloth, drink and the occasional effluvia.
2) Experience and education: familiarity with James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Irish literary culture of the early 20th century helpful. Competitive emphasis awarded applicants with a working definition of "metafiction."
3) Job description: Sort out nested narratives of authors and their characters; identify author's concepts regarding the creative process; laugh at author's lampoons, ironies and jokes; develop a high appreciation of author's conceptuality and use of voice; locate surprising floes of prose through which echo all kinds of intelligence; don't worry about getting absolutely every reference; appreciate William Gass's critical introduction to this edition, which adds to the fun and vision, and spoils nothing.
4) Compensation and benefits: Never boring, earns reader the metafictional and modern Irish literature badge of experience without much bloodletting.
5) Work location: Ideally read in proximity to others with whom insights and jokes can be shared but post-college isolation doable; bed not recommended unless weird dreams desired; does not go overly well with sand, gooey sunscreen and the sounds of the top 40 blasting from the radio three beach blankets away. The local pub would quite suit the content.

Like the country music to which I allude, this book is not for all. It is something for the serious reader of experimental fiction. Note, I do not call it a novel. But, nor do I think of Finnegan's Wake as a novel. Flann O'Brien takes us through levels of levels which demonstrate the onionlike quality of what we call fiction. What/where is the real world? Fiction obviously comments on "real" events, for examlple Huck Finn tell us about the consequences of slavery. And after all in "The Agamemmnon" we hear the consequences of leaving the wife at home and concentrating on work. And the legends of Vulcan and Venus are a soap opera.
Still, when a character in a book creates characters who interact with him where is the line of reality? Borges gives us men who dream up other men. Woody Allen has charcters spending lazy afternoons at the Ritz with Madame Bovary, or Kugelmassing around the French countryside. Thus when a never get out of bed college student starts creating a world of imagination, the reader is in for an O'Brienesque spin.
It is obvious, I think, that I enjoyed this book, but I must include a warning. This is not a typical, standard, straight line plotted piece of fiction. It is not mere entertainment. If you want a tale of early twentieth century Dublin life, stick to Dubliners.

ASTB is a story in a story in a story, starring a host of unlikeables and woven together by a surly, drunken master narrator.

If comedy is timing, then perhaps the meter of Mr. Nolan's prose is the key to his particular genius. A native speaker of Irish, he constructs sentences in ways that have the poetry of that language, and asserts such abrupt,hilarious, and logical sub-clauses that you sometimes find yourself laughing wildly and unexpectedly.

O'Brien's chief narrator, a drunk, lazy student, is the easiest character to understand and keep track of (his "biographical references" are the book's highlights). He has a rigorous jesuit brain, and a lazy, teenage body. He also has a fondness for consuming a great many "Pints of Plain", and observing the effects of these in himself and his acquantices with scientific curiosity.

I may be missing something, but in the final analysis I suspect that this book is not the masterpiece it could have been. That it was slashed by 1/3 by the author and one of his friends before publication may have rendered some of it more confusing than necessary. It's a pity he didn't take time to craft it tighter instead of just chopping out swathes of story. Maybe then I'd get what was going on a little better. Then again, maybe I wouldn't.

Should you buy it? Yes. It is an extremely clever postmodern piece of literature, and it will make you laugh. But don't try and read the whole thing in one sitting, or you'll find yourself irately meandering through some of the more surreal and apparently pointless dialogue. This stuff is best read slowly, as the point is not the plot, it's the scene and the poetry. If not for that, read it slowly for the simple reason that a story in a story in a story is just as confusing as it sounds.

I have read few books which have delighted me as much as At Swim-Two-Birds..I will not do the book a disservice by attempting to summarize the plot. This must be one of the most original debut novels ever written; its form is like that of nothing else I've read, and is used with great success for the purpose of, among other things, parody. The facility the author displays with language is astonishing and unsurpassed; he has a perfect `ear' for the language, and combines it with brilliant comic invention, which pervades the structure and scaffolding of the book down to the prose. In my opinion, this is definitely his masterpiece in English; and certainly one of the greatest novels in the language.

I'M HERE TO TELL YOU: THIS IS THE FUNNIEST BOOK IN THE WHOLE WORLD YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF. But don't believe me -- Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas, John Updike, and yes, Jimmy Joyce himself all felt the same about this impossibly convoluted Irish stew of mythology, poetry, drunken banter, and scatological humor. The book is constructed (to use the term loosely) as a UC Dublin student's journal during his final year, including his "spare time literary activities" interspersed with his "biological reminiscences". The former consist of a series of fitful forays into ancient Irish mythology, coupled with a book-within-a-book (within-a-book) attempt to write a highbrow novel. The latter involve the narrator's recountings of his (mostly inebriated) carousals and daft philosophizings with his odd cronies, admixed with his tense and tenuous relationship with his straightlaced uncle, with whom he boards. But to concentrate on the book's plot or content, such as they are, would be pointless. The book's real magic lies in Flann's virtuosic use of unabashed verbosity, unblinking descriptiveness, and just plain words, words, words, to provoke laugh after laugh after laugh after laugh. Nobody -- not Sterne, not Joyce, not even Groucho -- could string together words as funnily as Flann. It's as though an Irish Robin Williams had been locked up in his room with a pencil, pad, pint after pint, and his own mad (but very well-read) imagination. Read this book, you could use a good laugh (everyone can use a good laugh). Just don't drink anything while you're reading, guaranteed it'll end up coming out your nose.