Amazon.com: Customer reviews: At Swim-Two-Birds (Irish Literature)

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Swimming Inertia

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2019

Much like the Joycean Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, the brilliance within this work is not contained in forward momentum but in the dazzling bursts of splendiferous word play wrapped in möbius loops of vaguely connected characters and situations which make for Dramamine moments of dizzying highs and subterranean lows bringing about a beginning meets middle meets end as incongruous as it is unexpected leaving you at the close bewildered, entertained, enlightened in ways difficult to track yet immensely worth the effort. Swimming inertia at its finest. Take a dip, if you dare.

4 people found this helpful

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Dr J ReadsTop Contributor: Poetry Books

Notable, yet...

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2019

At Swim, Two Birds is notable as a classic work of Irish literature. Yet, the work put into reading made this book more of a slog than a delight.

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C.B. Smith

Swimming Inertia

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2019

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4 people found this helpful

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LouMeatskavitch85

Wonderfully comic fun

Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2016

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Mind-bending, totally original. Some of the best lyrical prose I have ever read. In my opinion Flann O'Brien ranks up there with Joyce and Nabokov as the world's best writers. The poetic flow of this book is beyond amazing. And that's just the writing: the plot is a work of staggering originality. A story within a story and on and on until the reader doesn't care because he/she is so swept up in the fun and joy of what is going on at that exact moment on that very page. I could go on but I'm not the best reviewer on earth and can't write on O'Brien's level so I'll bow out with what I've written and stand by it until the end.

9 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Not love at first sight.

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2018

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This was a most intriguing book. I read reviews where people mentioned reading it multiple times and for the longest time I couldn't understand why. It's not that the book was terrible. There are quite a few story lines from the beginning... But it isn't 'til later on that everything starts to come together. By the end I found myself wanting to re-read it as well. I'll just say this, it's a book that you need to be patient with in the beginning, it's worth it.

11 people found this helpful

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

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2003

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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

61 people found this helpful

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M. J. Post

Worth the effort

Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2019

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One of the strangest books I've ever read. It took a while for me to figure out what was going on. It's laugh-out-loud funny the whole way through, but the story within a story within a story where the characters take over the entire narrative can be hard to follow. The ending is brilliant.

2 people found this helpful

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Charles J. Marr

Postmodern before postmodern was cool!!

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2004

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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.

12 people found this helpful

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Dr J ReadsTop Contributor: Poetry Books

Notable, yet...

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2019

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At Swim, Two Birds is notable as a classic work of Irish literature. Yet, the work put into reading made this book more of a slog than a delight.

2 people found this helpful

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Nancy K. Tamarisk

A wild romp

Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2021

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Total anarchy, a wild romp through Irish legend, a satire of student and writing life. Why had I never heard of this glorious book?

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C. Ebeling

Buckle Your Seatbelt

Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2005

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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.

22 people found this helpful

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Fred C. Dobbs

A wild ride...hang on.

Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2013

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This is a book quite unlike any other. It may be the first metafictional romp, and it's a very Irish one at that. I enjoyed it, but it's not to everyone's taste, I'm sure. It's extremely quirky, humorous and the design and plot of the narrative is labyrinthine and surprising. All serious students of the novel ought to give this singular book a whirl. Those looking for a conventional tale, run for the hills!

6 people found this helpful

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