Let's have a heated debate about At Swim-Two-Birds

The main thing I do like about At Swim-Two-Birds is the feeling of Dublin as a claustrophobic place which manages to beat everyone into this sort of strange torpor where all they can do is drink and look for money to buy more drink. I seem to remember my college years being not a million miles away from this. But again, I'm not sure that he sustains it across the whole book all that well.

Still, never mind. I have at least finished it this time and so it no longer needs to be one of those books I'm embarrassed to say I haven't read.

I certainly remember some of the catchphrases: the stuff from the tip-sheet about the CAST-IRON PLUNGERS and of course "A pint of plain is your only man."

I've tried to get through it three times now, and I just don't see the point.

There is no point to the book. It is a tour de force of invention, with a plot that makes no sense at all, characters who don't mesh and never existed, and random opinionizing off the cuff. If you don't find it funny, then it is probably because you do not share enough of the frame of reference - Ireland as O'Brien experienced it.

Humor often doesn't travel well. You generally need to be one of the victims of the thing that is being skewered to appreciate its being toppled off its high horse, given a few swift kicks in the head and made to cross-dress. I'm sure if you'd been a student at Trinity College, Dublin in 1940 or thereabouts, you'd find it howlingly funny - or profoundly offensive. Either one works.

It did lead me into reading both The Third Policeman - which is wonderful but also tricky to get into - and The Best Of Myles, which I just love for its silliness: inventions like alcoholic ink, or the pointy things on the front of trains to avoid head-on collisions. Occasionally, on my old blog, I would interrupt myself with an interjection from The Plain People Of The Internet, but I'm not sure anyone ever got the reference.

(incidentally, I originally got hold of ASTB because it's described very neatly in one of my favourite obscure novels ever, Zeno Was Here by Jan Mark.)

It makes me wonder to what extent being slightly intimidated by a book prior to actually opening it can ruin the reading for me, as I've had the same thing happen with other supposedly "tough" books, while others I were more aware of prior to reading got tougher. Some ridiculous self-respect performance anxiety thing?
Maybe it's simply that this way I didn't end up stopping and trying to figure out every little thing, and just enjoyed the ride.
I'm a real sucker for the whole metafiction thing with books in books and realities/fantasies switching or merging etc as well, so that helped.
And when I was done I was tempted to just start the whole thing over again, which is a rare thing for me.
With this mindset, it's clearly a good thing that I didn't end up studying literature like I wanted to at one point (I'm one of those soulless IT guys now)

i really liked that collection of puns o'brien wrote that's the adventures of keats and somebody.... it was all one-page stories with contrived setups, all to drop a silly pun at the end.

I thoroughly recommend this page: http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/obrien.html which, even as a fan of themodernword, I had only just spotted. Some good anecdotes I didn't already know.

I also recommend yer man Brooker's brief intro
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0746310811/qid=1125526714/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-6865451-1849263

Interesting to read Josh's comment about bits he loves preventing him from reading the rest. In my experience, it's the complete opposite: if I find a passage, or even a paragraph, that's great I will perservere to absurd lengths to find that quality in stuff that's less immediately appealing.

My favourite character in A S-T-B is The Pooka.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14105242

hm.

of all the people i'd like to see involved in a flann o'brien movie, sure, him

so, yeah, this:

accentmonkey wrote:
I've tried to get through it three times now, and I just don't see the point.

There is no point to the book. It is a tour de force of invention, with a plot that makes no sense at all, characters who don't mesh and never existed, and random opinionizing off the cuff. If you don't find it funny, then it is probably because you do not share enough of the frame of reference - Ireland as O'Brien experienced it.

Humor often doesn't travel well. You generally need to be one of the victims of the thing that is being skewered to appreciate its being toppled off its high horse, given a few swift kicks in the head and made to cross-dress. I'm sure if you'd been a student at Trinity College, Dublin in 1940 or thereabouts, you'd find it howlingly funny - or profoundly offensive. Either one works.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 30 December 2004 19:26 (6 years ago) Bookmark

which i don't know about. i feel like this book (more than his others, even) seems like the evidence of a seriously talented person who's .. not quite going all the way with it. my boss thinks he's the great genius of 20th century letters and it's hard not to wonder why, i don't know. i think i have a lot of trouble with people whose work 'has no point' or aims at mere (mere!) delight -- o'brien is a bit like wodehouse plus modernism

Wodehouse + Modernism not wholly fair - I don't really like what I remember of At Swim (I read it once, a long time ago, don't have much patience with metafictional tricks), but I think the Third Policeman goes a lot further, and isn't a book with no point: its horror at the futility of its own imagination + giddiness at recursive voids make it a working vision of hell for me. And if it had been published when it was written we'd prob have a different, more literary O'B.

Been re-reading, prompted by this thread. About halfway. Mad energy – one of those young man first books that just keeps throwing more and more stuff that seems a brilliant idea on the page, because the author can, and he's entertaining himself. Really wearing though, and page-by-page inconsistent – not just 'oshit, mock Irish epic, bored again, get back to the biographical fragments', but even his renditions of blather jump from perfect but pointless mimicry to v funny high strangeness rendered in obsessively observed idiom and cadence. Still not a real fan of this particular book, but it doesn't dim my love for O'B.

The signing of a movie co-production treaty between Ireland and Luxembourg

Provoked a chuckle, I must admit

Flew through it without any drag. read tiresome poetic mccool yarns as v pointed critique of yeats/gregory style cultural nationalism appropriated mythologies and, having studied the fair share of that stuff at school, found it skilfully done and funny.

maccool stuff is my favourite in the book. vaguely recall some line about his size being so great that (number) of people could have played (sport) against the breadth of his backside, that was my favourite line.

though i guess all sort of an extrapolation from 'cyclops', a bit

i should reread this

"My only problem with Brian O'Nolan (two of whose pseudonyms are Flann O'Brien and Myles na Gopaleen) is that he seemed too satisfied to be Irish to be sane"

(I don't think I agree w that)

yah i don't think i agree with either of the premises there

what's that touristy pub in dublin with all the myles paraphernalia, i like that pub

would be a tourist in that pub

above quote is gass btw (I'm nothing if not predictable)

ah see from gass i imagine he's just after the lols so

A gass man surely

Bleurgh just read this, hated it, discovered it's a so-called masterpiece, am grateful for the existence of this thread.

Metafiction like this is so bloodless unless you end up caring about the crafting of the story – like in Borges. He liked this book apparently but I find his metafictional stuff so much more enticing...

O'Brien's sense of humour just doesn't work for everybody

not sure that its status as masterpiece is in question tbph, but other than that you didn't like it obv commiserations back on the horse tho the next book u read could change your life

"sir, the pictures are not on trial"

i don't like it either. there are funny parts but it is kinda paddywhackery.

there are so many great writers that are amusing about irishness and ireland, the competition is pretty high, most are funnier than this imo and they make interesting observations as well as being witty.

i always mean to try third policeman tho.

i mean someone like beckett, his novels and stories are really funny without needing a big band of dancing leprechauns to hammer home the joke just in case you missed it the first 1000 times.

Third Policeman is an utterly different gig and well worth yr time. tbh, Swim-Two-Birds isn't much like any of his other books, bar his voice

Making lighthearted and less begrudgingly embittered observations about ireland in the thirties/forties/fifties would seem to be missing the mark imo

Try third policeman, very different tone and approach imo, more wonder and space to it vs astb

Any further recommendations for paddywhackery and other writers being amusing about irishness and ireland? I think that's what I enjoyed most about this. Have read and enjoyed Dubliners and some JP Donleavy.

yeah i mean, i totally accept at the time it was different.

i kinda came to o'brien last after some joyce and a lot of beckett, i dunno, astb was the first irish classic i didn't enjoy.

obv a lot later but have any of you read much behan? i picked up "brendan behan's island" at a second-hand stall a while back, it's brilliant, just full of great stories.

xpost

the above, and samuel beckett - murphy. i find portrait of an artist p funny too in places.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-si235kWNc5I/UCfBawRf5JI/AAAAAAAAAOs/FRbxaiX_7K0/s1600/Puckoon.jpg

Donleavy fans – this was fun:
http://www.nowness.com/day/2010/4/5/517/ink-and-canvas

Definitely will give Third Policeman a try, of course I got the sense in ASTB that a lot of it would be much more funny if you were familiar with the Irish Epics and literary trends at that time, which admittedly I am not.

Totally different writer and period but I've always enjoyed John McGahern on irishness. More bleak than funny though. ASTB also made me think of The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O Shea. It's a kids book but does similar things... characters from Irish folklore misbehaving and being silly in a contemporary, domestic setting.

i've only dipped into behan and probably before i was old enough to get a lot of the language and nuance

frank o'connor, obv

even having said that i may be thinking of jb keane for behan there.

pat mccabe kinda fits the bill too.

i was a little disappointed by astb too tbh.

I will stan for astb forever, but I think it might be one of those books that you only love if you came to it as a teenager. Definitely not at the level of Joyce/Beckett in terms of soul, but it is its own unique beautiful artifice.

i think the only Behan i've read is Borstal Boy and i don't remember very much at all, but i'd guess it isn't especially representative of his creative work?

Came to astb six months ago or so.

I dunno would i regard it as lacking in soul. Maybe whether or not one feels kindred with the type of soul on display might well have a bearing on how one responds to the novel?

tbh this thread is giving me the yen to re-read ATSB

except, y'know, with the initials in the right order

ATSB was one of the tom clancy game reboots iirc rip fallen eagle ;_;

I'm as well to say that I'm profoundly disappointed in ilxs lack of clamour for this most perfect of works. I've decided that.

Then perhaps you've not noticed the bagging and shine at the knees of my trousers from kneeling to genuflect at its altar, now have you? I should say not.

A pint or suggest ban is your only man, darrahmac.

To say its not enough is a criticism of your limited numbers being in and of yourself only yourself, man.

xp

I think fob would have been strongly for the sb and furthermore as myles would have written a scorcher setpiece about modding if his sketches on courtrooms are anything to go by

I am put in mind to say, was not Finn MacCool a man of breadth, of height, of reach, of parts, of skill with the bow, the staff and fist, quick to fury, gentle as a lamb with the softer sex, determined as a limpet and alert as a fine hound, in short a man worth a multitude? Would you also account him too few in number, being but one, is the question I would be asking you and think it worth your while to answer.

A fine man to ask it,indeed! But is it not the case, and well acknowledged, that under the modern system (and I need not remind you under which lot THAT was brought in!) the vote of such a man, or any man, can be set aside by the single perpendicular vote of any common guttersnipe, marauder, barroom solicitor, thief, local councillor or essayist?

I mean to say, whether a yarn is tall or small I like to hear it well told. I like to meet a man that can take in hand to tell a story and not make a balls of it while he's at it. I like to know where I am, do you know. Everything has a beginning and an end.

(ie I love this book too)

I've put enough of these posts in my mouth for a fortnight's chewing

Do you tell me that? It is very baffling to hear it, and will certainly have dire implications if it ever gets as far as the fourcourts.

I mean to say, whether a yarn is tall or small I like to hear it well told. I like to meet a man that can take in hand to tell a story and not make a balls of it while he's at it. I like to know where I am, do you know. Everything has a beginning and an end.

― as verbose and purple as a Peter Ustinov made of plums (James Morrison), Friday, 8 January 2016 03:17 (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Good post

This is the best book

I mean the scene where the good fairy calls to the pooka and he still abed

There is no scene to match it

Relate us further, for the love of God.

Don't be doing this to me now boys, I've just come to bed and I'll be buggered if I'm getting up again to hunt down the book.

Of the noodles you have ever got, which have you found the vaguest?

There is finer stuff in that suit than was ever in any angels eye is the stone coldest drawing of a metaphorical blade that ever was conceived. Olivier buck naked locked out of Scott's tent would fall miles short of the frigidity of tone demanded

Nature of thread: civil, perfunctory, uninformative

The conclusion of your syllogism is fallacious, being based upon licensed premises.

I saw that my witticism was unperceived and quietly replaced it in the treasury of my mind.

So about the collected letters.

Apparently a right miserable so-and-so, Brian O'Nolan.

Recommended read?

reviewed poorly by a cunt with an axe to grind in the sunday times a few weeks back but that doesnt negate the review neither

Also reviewed poorly in the Lit Review, basically saying it starts well, but there's too much repetitious bulk from the later, bitter, less talented years.

Ugh.

Which of us could not be thus reviewed?

I am going to review them.

its good-for-reading again

Hell yeah I restarted this, this past week. This book has tattooed more memorable phrases on my brain than any other

I want to re-read it! But Library Loan was a casualty of local Library War, hm maybe I'll look for nice priced used copies of this and other Flann, maybe not Myles:

Oh I did read xxxxxpost At Swim-Two-Birds, thanks yall for the rec (re place to start w Flann/Myles). The only parts that properly amazed me, given this book's acclaim, were the mad lost king Sweeney's succinct laments, checking in to sing updates on his suffering, having spent last night perched on a high branch in the deep woods, for instance. The way he balances imagery on meter, resigned and yet not---or he wouldn't keep showing up: he's sad, not depressed---seems classical in the best sense. Not knowing a better Irish reference, I think of it as Yeatsian, in the best sense, though seems to draw on whatever Yeats drew on.
And there's some echo of this in the suffering of the author of the book within the book (etc.), whose characters have risen against the oppression of his shit writing: not because he expresses it like Sweeney, but because he's not learning the error of his ways, because the violence against him seems (and is) futile.

Also, got a chuckle about cowboy hack characters getting hassled by rustlers from another book---all in Ireland, of course---otherwise, as the narrator's pal replies whenever the narrator goes on in an un-Sweeney-like way, the rest of these crowded, very talky halls-within-walls are "all my bum."

But I wouldn't mind reading some more if I come across it, and may make The Third Policeman my next library system loan request.

― dow, Tuesday, November 21, 2023 10:32 PM (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Definitely read The Third Policeman. I need to reread that too.

― mojo dojo casas house (gyac), Wednesday, November 22, 2023 10:05 AM (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

A pint of plain is your only man.

― Shifty Henry’s Swing Club (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Uh-oh maybe I showed my own bum by taking Sweeney seriously, bunt so beam it; I'm his fan.