At Swim-Two-Birds (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series)

Amazon.com Reviews

In a 1938 letter to a literary agent, Flann O'Brien described his first novel as "a very queer affair, unbearably queer perhaps." The book in question was At Swim-Two-Birds--and if we take queer to mean diabolically eccentric, then truer words were never spoken. The author, whose real name was Brian O'Nolan, had successfully stirred Gaelic legend, pulp fiction, and grimy Dublin realism into a hilarious cocktail. His mastery of modernist collage would have been an ample accomplishment itself. But O'Brien was also blessed with the writer's equivalent of perfect pitch, and in At Swim-Two-Birds he squeezes the maximum beauty and banality out of the English language. All he lacks is a tragic register, but he makes up for this deficit with a sense of comedy so acute that even James Joyce couldn't resist blurbing his fellow Dubliner's creation: "A really funny book."

O'Brien labored mightily to make At Swim-Two-Birds summary-proof. But here, anyway, are the bare bones: the narrator, a university student, is writing a novel, which keeps morphing from mock-heroics to middlebrow naturalism. Meanwhile, one of his characters, Dermot Trellis, is himself writing a Western--an Irish Western--whose cowpunching protagonists will eventually throw off their fictional shackles and attempt to murder their creator. (Talk about the death of the author!) There's enough structural shenanigans here to keep an entire industry of critics afloat. Still, what matters most is the pungency of O'Brien's prose. His dialogue is agreeably grungy, his parodies delicious, and the narrator speaks in the sort of Jesuitical dialect that we associate with Samuel Beckett:

That same afternoon I was sitting on a stool in an intoxicated condition in Grogan's licensed premises. Adjacent stools bore the forms of Brinsley and Kelly, my two true friends. The three of us were occupied in putting glasses of stout into the interior of our bodies and expressing by fine disputation the resulting sense of physical and mental well-being. In my thigh pocket I had eleven and eightpence in a weighty pendulum of mixed coins.

Snippets, alas, do little justice to At Swim-Two-Birds, which relies heavily on cumulative chaos for its effect. Graham Greene, an early fan, compared its comic charge to "the kind of glee one experiences when people smash china on the stage." A half century after its initial appearance, O'Brien's masterpiece remains a gleeful read--a marvelous, inventive, and (last but not least) really funny book. --James Marcus

Book Description

Along with one or two books by James Joyce, Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds is the most famous (and infamous) of Irish novels published in the twentieth century. Or to put it as Dylan Thomas did: "It establishes Mr. O'Brien in the forefront of contemporary writing. . . . This is just the book to give your sister if she's a loud, dirty, boozy girl!"

The story of an Irish college student whohalf to amuse himself and half to avoid workwrites an irreverent novel about the figures of Irish myth and legend in which characters come to life and riot against their author, At Swim is a wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture which had a major influence on writers coming after O'Brien, including Anthony Burgess, Gilbert Sorrentino, and William H. Gass (who has written an introduction for this edition).

O'Brien opened up a whole new world of possibilities for fiction as subsequent novelists have played with his zany ideas, chief among them being the idea that characters in fiction have earned the right to be "recycled"after all, they've proven their reliability as characters!not put out to pasture once their stories are finished.

Customer Reviews:

A good cure for insomnia.......2007-09-13

My friends thought it would be a great idea to start a book club. Our first assignment: At Swim-Two-Birds. Not knowing what to expect, we all found it quite odd that the book was so hard to come by. It was not readily available in any library or book store. After having ordered this book of the 100 All-Time Best Novels, we each set out to read the book with some difficulty.

I enjoy reading as a hobby, however, unless forced or tricked as the case may be, I would never have read this book after the first 20 or so pages. There is something to a manner of textbooks and technical manuals that causes me to suddenly fall into a deep slumber when attempting to read them with intent. This book falls into this category. I cannot read more than a few pages without suddenly feeling drugged to the point where my brain ceases all function and I collapse in a drooling heap.

I would not be so pretentious as to wax on about the literary genious of this book, as it seems so many others have done. While there have been some interesting points and even some chuckles to be had, for the most part this text is loathsome to read. I also have to point out that being Irish by birth, this review saddens me to write, but it is all true. I feel that I must warn others who may be deceived by the great reviews regarding this book.

Modernist Fantasy Psychedelia Novel.......2007-04-15

Out of all the novels I read in my modernist college course, I found this one among the two most enjoyable. Though I'm of Irish decent myself, I'm far enough removed from the mother country that many of Joyce's themes, motiffs, and dialogues were completely lost on me. Plus, Joyce is extremely difficult to read in my opinion, and sometimes pages took hours. I barely survived the sermon and kicked and screamed the whole way through.
Not so with Flann O'Brien. Though the style shifting was somewhat hard to follow, I found "At Swim-Two-Birds" much more accessible than the other great modernists, even easier to digest than Faulkner (I believe I grasped Faulkner easily because being a southerner myself, I understand his accent). I also enjoyed the book because I entered a career in literature through a love of mythology and the fantasy books that I grew up with, and Finn McCool and the Pooka were welcome characters. Also, I was in college and the psychedelic dreams-to-reality theme sparked my interest as well. Plus, O'brien's sentences are riotously funny and his rebellious parody is a blast. I think this might be better as a first book in an English 301, rather than a last, because if I had read it first I might have been more able to digest Joyce, and wouldn't be so afraid of him now.

Well timed, perfectly ridiculous........2006-07-08

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.

Just read it aloud.......2006-07-03

If you are lucky enough to ever go to Dublin and have time to linger over a few pints you'll hear the same cadences , superbly illogical statements, bizarre juxtapositions and general love of life that O'Brien listened to and included in ASTB. Buy it and read it out loud with as much of an Irish brogue as you can manage.This book will have you laughing out loud at the sparkling wit and playful inventiveness of one of Ireland's greatest writers.

t'a gr'a agam dhuit! Irish Storyteller.......2006-04-06

Mary Whipple has a knack for recommending experimental and unusual stories and At Swim-Two-Birds is of them.

Czech this one out. I implore you. Mary has a tribal mind and so do I ;-) Do you?

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Alive Alive O!

Manufacturer: Wolfhound Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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At Swim Two Birds
Flann Obrien
Manufacturer: MACGIBBON & KEE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SO2N2Q

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At Swim Two Birds
Flann Obrien
Manufacturer: MACGIBBON & KEE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UDAOMG

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AT SWIM, TWO BIRDS
FLANN O\'BRIEN
Manufacturer: MACGIBBON
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000S2ZS34

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At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O'Brien
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OJOH8S

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"Where will you find, these days, as joyous a throat?"

At Swim-Two-Birds [by]
Flann O'Brien
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007EMJOY

Customer Reviews:

"Where will you find, these days, as joyous a throat?".......2005-09-21

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

At Swim-Two-Birds [Pantheon 1st edition]

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At Swim-Two-Birds [Pantheon 1st edition]
Flann O'Brien
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SN691I

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AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS.
Flann. O'Brien
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O9L3ZI

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At Swim-Two-Birds: 1st Edition
Flann O'Brien
Manufacturer: LONGMANS GREEN & CO LTD
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UCS0RI

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A Good Idea, Poorly Executed

Sherlock Holmes in Lhssa

Post-Colonial Holmes

Shame on you, Norbu

Excellent, my dear Holmes!
The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes
Jamyang Norbu
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

British Detectives | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
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Book Description

A new Sherlock Holmes mystery worthy of the master Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself.

In 1891, the British public was horrified to learn that Sherlock Holmes had perished in a deadly struggle with the archcriminal Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Then, to its amazement, he reappeared two years later, informing a stunned Watson, 'I traveled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa.'

Nothing has been known of those missing years until Jamyang Norbu's discovery, in a rusting tin dispatch box in Darjeeling, of a flat packet carefully wrapped in waxed paper and neatly tied with stout twine. When opened the packet revealed Huree Chunder Mookerjee's (Kipling's Bengali spy and scholar) own account of his travels with Sherlock Holmes.

Now for the first time, we learn of Holmes's brush with the Great Game and the world of Kim. We follow him north across the hot and duty plains of India to Simla, summer capital of the British Raj, and over the high passes to the vast emptiness of the Tibetan plateau. In the medieval splendor that is Lhasa, intrigue and black treachery stalk the shadows, and Sherlock Holmes confronts his greatest challenge.

Customer Reviews:

A Good Idea, Poorly Executed.......2005-12-14

The conceit of the novel is great - SH's missing years, Kipling's Huree Babu as narrator. But the novel fails on multiple levels. Although it puts SH in new situations, it gives us no new insight on or vision of him. In places reading _Mandala_ felt like reading a Holmes story written by Doyle, which the author may take as a compliment, but which I don't mean as one as here it felt merely as hero-worship. Not that I was looking for SH to be taken down a peg or two, but I was hoping to get out of what can sometimes feel like vise-grip of SH's mind in the Doyle stories. Norbu had the oppourtunity to do this, but too great a fan of Doyle/SH, he simply followed the formula: a perplexing case, SH's focused mind, mysterious orders issued by SH to trap the criminal, the catch, and then a full explanation to a bewildered Watson/Huree. There is nothing we/Watson/Huree can do but gape in admiration. The same goes for the Tibeten Lamas. In the wierdly Haggard-esque scenes in the Ice Caves, I kept expecting one of the Lamas to _do_ something. But evidently only SH has all the answers and can save the day. If this were done tongue-in-cheek (say, alluding ironically to Superman, etc), Norbu might have been able to pull it off (and write an interesting scene). But as it is, he _does_ seem to believe that all the answers lie with SH. This works in Doyle's stories (although even he tired of it), but more than a 100 yrs later, it feels tedious.

Sherlock Holmes in Lhssa.......2005-03-01

Sure this is pastiche But it is crafted with care. The author shows great care in trying to give a good 19th century feel to his story. The fact that he brings Tibetan philosophy into his plot line should not be that much of a shock. I grew up on Sax Rohmer[Arthur Henry Ward], T. Lobsang Rampa[Cyril Hoskins], & Joan Grant "far memory" books. I love the Doyle canon but even Doyle was fallible. I enjoyed this book very much, in fact I hope the author writes another. FYI there is a glossary at the back of the book.

Post-Colonial Holmes.......2004-05-11

Despite the shallow reviews you may have read, this is an excellent book, not only for Holmes fans but for people interested in colonialism and Tibet's struggle against China and India's struggle for freedom for England. Yes, this book is more about the issues of Tibet's struggle to find its way through the minefields of British and Chinese imperialism than it is about ratiocination. The narrator alone is worth the money and time, and with some magical realism thrown in for a truly Tibetan reading experience, this amounts to a book many will find very interesting. Not everyone, obviously, but perhaps you? I loved it!

Shame on you, Norbu.......2004-02-25

This terrible book should be anathema to any true reader of the Holmes Canon. SH once said "no ghosts need apply" when first confronted with the Baskerville legend but the author fills the book with mystical nonsense -- duels with energy bolts! - levitation! - alternate lives! -Moriarty rising from Reichenbach falls (the shock of iminent death reminded him he was a powerful llama). Very silly stuff -- but in the context of a Holmes pastiche it's sacrilegious.
My only regret is that true readers cannot mount a class action suit against this twisted mockery of Holmes' logic-based adventures. Give this book to your enemies.

Excellent, my dear Holmes!.......2003-11-18

So long as you don't allow yourself to be tricked into buying the same book twice (yes, Virginia, Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years is the same book!!) you are in for a treat. This author captures Holmes as Holmes would have been--still the world's greatest detective. Disguise, aliases, locations, all these meant nothing to the man behind the magnifying glass. The Fu Manchu like attack with the leech in the lamp--brilliant! I can't say enough good things about this book except Jamyang Norbu, don't make it your last! Definately five Sherlock stars!

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Le Mandala de Sherlock Holmes
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Manufacturer: Philippe Picquier
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Mandala of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of the Great Detective in Tibet

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NIFTY SHERLOCKIAN JOURNEY THRU INDIA AND TIBET.

Mandala of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of the Great Detective in Tibet
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Manufacturer: Harper Collins Publishers India
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 8172233647

Book Description

An exciting, often richly humorous detective story, also envokes the romance of Kipling's India.

Customer Reviews:

NIFTY SHERLOCKIAN JOURNEY THRU INDIA AND TIBET........2006-07-19

No doubt, Conan Doyle himself would enjoy this singular adventure through 1889 Bombay, and into Tibet. When the evil Moriarty falls from the cliff, and Sherlock disappears, our detective hero gets involved in some nasty business, and learns much about Tibet, Buddhism, and mountain journeys. A mix of Doyle, Kipling, and even Indiana Jones, this is an adventure that never stops, and with a really eccentric group of characters, including the future Dalai Lama. With enough wit and humor thrown in ,this is one "Can't Miss" Holmesian takeoff. Possibly, some of the mysticism may be overdone, but still a fine way to spend a few wee small hours!

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Customer Reviews:

TAPE ERASURE AND PICKING A GIRL.......2006-01-09

Nobuko has decided it's time to raise their relationship to the next level. Even though the two lovebirds have never kissed, she wants to spend the night with Yota at his house. But at the most inopportune time, he gets a call from Ai and has to go to her emotional rescue. Ai, while still suffering from amnesia, is drawn inexplicably to Yota but she doesn't want to hurt Nobuko. And besides that, she has bigger problems when her creator arrives on Earth, his mission to erase Ai! Yota is at a loss since he still cares for Ai but feels he had to move on because of her lost memory. Even the girl that started all this mess, Moemi, is wanting more than just friendship from our once "Dateless" hero.

This manga has evolved from a once comedic formula of boy meets tomboyish fantasy girl to a romance in the space of the last two volumes. It's hard to sympathize with Yota at times because of his embarrassment of riches. It seems like all the girls want him now but he's having a hard time doing what has to be done. Mainly, picking one! Katsura did a better job in this fourth volume of making Yota's decisions based on his unwillingness to hurt anyone instead of portraying him as a sort of caddish gigolo in the last volume. But most of the time, a failure to express your feelings in a relationship leads to trouble. If only Yota could learn this lesson. This is turning into a fine series.

okay..........2003-06-09

I wasn't sure whether to give this a 3 or a 4, but I gave it a 4 because it really was interesting enough that I got through it quickly (if something takes me a while to read, it's either very long or not very interesting). Yota is still dealing with relationship problems, only now his problems don't involve the word "dateless". In fact, he's got way too many women in his life. There's Moemi, Nobuko, and Ai. Yota's dating Nobuko, but he still loves Ai, and he's still got feelings for Moemi. It makes his life pretty complicated. The reason I was wondering if I should give it a 3 was because I'm getting to the point in this series where I think every one of these characters just needs a break from each other - or maybe just from Yota. It's hard to believe that he could go from being the guy with the nickname "Dateless" to the guy that every girl wants to have. This book still was a pretty good read, but I don't think I'm going to be continuing with this series anytime soon.

A new rival in love appears, plus Moemi suddenly returns.......2002-04-12

Video Girl Ai Vol. 4: Off-Line continues Katsura's romantical triangle/square/pentagon saga with a hint of cyber sci-fi and a thoughtful, serious undertone concerning the fragility of human hearts and emotions. Certain mature themes about human sexuality briefly appear in this graphic novel, which is intended for a wide age range but not for very young children. The formerly "Dateless" protagonist Yota has met a flesh-and-blood young woman who is very interested in him - yet Ai Amano is still around, attending his school, with nearly all her memories of being a "video girl" seemingly erased. The unknowing Ai may have only another month of life left to her, but Yota's human girlfriend doesn't know that! A new rival in love appears, plus Moemi suddenly returns... but neither of these two are as dangerous as Ai's creator, who is most displeased about the "flaws" appearing in his work! Those followers of Katsura's humanistic saga who have watched the animated adaptation of Video Girl Ai should not pass up Video Girl Ai Vol. 4: Off-Line, because the original manga takes the story into a much different and deeper direction than the anime, which roughly corresponds to volumes 1-3 only. Video Girl Ai is enthusiastically recommended.

Breathtaking..........2002-03-01

Video Girl Ai is by far the most tender love story I've read ... even outside of anime! The characters are so true to life and the story is excellent! I've read manga over and over, and each time it seems more poignant. I also own the DVD and I can never seem to get enough of that, either. I really can identify with Yota's pain. I would highly recommend this manga, especially if you are "dateless" and pure of heart.

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Creates ways for children to explore the fright, confusion, and insecurity caused by traumatic events in their lives.

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great therapeutic tool.......2000-04-18

I'm a child therapist and have used this book numerous times with emotionally disturbed children. It helps children explore feelings in a non-threatening and strengths-focused manner. In addition, it is general enough for kids to personalize it with whatever issue happens to be troubling them. They love being the illustrator of a book and the directed art therapy format makes it simple to use for the therapist. My only complaint is that there is some overlap with her (Ms Heegaard's) other books (pages on feelings identification), so if you choose to do another with the same child, he/she has seen it before.

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