Matt's review
At Swim-Two-Birds (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series)
by Flann O'Brien
Matt's review
At Swim-Two-Birds (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series) by Flann O'Brien
Matt's review
rating:
bookshelves:
literature
I knew that I would love this book. I've read enough of O'Brien to know that he is one of my favorite writers. At Swim-Two-Birds is a satyric masterpiece. A story in which a young man in college is writing a story about a fat man who won't leave his bed, who is writing a story about a depraved man and his friends, who begin to hate the author and start to write his story in retaliation. The story is punctuated with appearances by a pooka, a good fairy, Finn McCool, and the mad Irish king Sweeny, as well as by notes from the initial narrator in which he provides dictionary definitions of the oratorical devices used by the characters, and by his own friends and family, as well as encyclopedia paragraphs on tangential information related to the story. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Flann O'Brien who could write a story with such perfect clarity comprised of all of these different pieces.
