Novel
At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O'Brien · 1939
Synopsis
An Irish student whose name we never learn, who lives in Dublin with his uncle, an employee of the Guinness brewery, and spends more time drinking stout than attending his classes, writes a novel that refuses to have a single beginning and a single end. He sets several stories in motion in it: that of Dermot Trellis, a cynical writer whose characters, John Furriskey foremost, chafe at his authority, that of the Pooka MacPhellimey, and his own versions of the legends of Finn Mac Cool and the mad king Sweeney.
Context
The novel appears from Longman on 13 March 1939, on the enthusiastic recommendation of Graham Greene, then a reader for the house. It sells poorly: barely more than two hundred and forty copies by the declaration of war, and a bombing in 1940 destroys almost all the stock. Praised on its release by James Joyce and by Dylan Thomas, it achieves fame only after its reissue in 1960.
Who it is for
A novel in English with nested stories, mixing parody, legend and poetry; two French translations, the second in 2002.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the most important modernist novels from before 1945 and ranked by Time among the best novels in the English language.