History Literature / AtSwimTwoBirds

The book was more or less created as a means for O'Brien to play with metafiction tropes. Extremely impressive, given that the work was published ''in 1939.'' Unfortunately, although it received much critical acclaim (even from none other than ''James Joyce'' aka {{Creator/JamesJoyce| {{Captain Mind Screw}}}} ), the book only sold 244 copies before the warehouse in which it was stored was destroyed in World War II, and was only reprinted again in 1950.

The book was more or less created as a means for O'Brien to play with metafiction tropes. Extremely impressive, given that the work was published ''in 1939.'' Unfortunately, although it received much critical acclaim (even from none other than ''James Joyce'' aka {{[[Creator/JamesJoyce]] |Captain Mind Screw}} ), the book only sold 244 copies before the warehouse in which it was stored was destroyed in World War II, and was only reprinted again in 1950.

The book was more or less created as a means for O'Brien to play with metafiction tropes. Extremely impressive, given that the work was published ''in 1939.'' Unfortunately, although it received much critical acclaim (even from none other than ''James Joyce'' aka {{Creator/JamesJoyce| Captain Mind Screw}}), the book only sold 244 copies before the warehouse in which it was stored was destroyed in World War II, and was only reprinted again in 1950.

The book was more or less created as a means for O'Brien to play with metafiction tropes. Extremely impressive, given that the work was published ''in 1939.'' Unfortunately, although it received much critical acclaim (even from none other than ''James Joyce'' aka {{Creator/James Joyce|Captain Mind Screw}}), the book only sold 244 copies before the warehouse in which it was stored was destroyed in World War II, and was only reprinted again in 1950.

The book was more or less created as a means for O'Brien to play with metafiction tropes. Extremely impressive, given that the work was published ''in 1939.'' Unfortunately, although it received much critical acclaim (even from none other than ''James Joyce'' aka {{Creator/James Joyce| Captain Mind Screw}}), the book only sold 244 copies before the warehouse in which it was stored was destroyed in World War II, and was only reprinted again in 1950.

The book was more or less created as a means for O'Brien to play with metafiction tropes. Extremely impressive, given that the work was published ''in 1939.'' Unfortunately, although it received much critical acclaim (even from none other than ''James Joyce'' aka {{Creator/James Joyce|Captain Mind Screw}}), the book only sold 244 copies before the warehouse in which it was stored was destroyed in World War II, and was only reprinted again in 1950.

The book was more or less created as a means for O'Brien to play with metafiction tropes. Extremely impressive, given that the work was published ''in 1939.'' Unfortunately, although it received much critical acclaim (even from none other than James Joyce), the book only sold 244 copies before the warehouse in which it was stored was destroyed in World War II, and was only reprinted again in 1950.

* NoNameGiven: The protagonist of ''At Swim'', like that of ''[[TheThirdPoliceman The Third Policeman]]'', is never given a name. [[spoiler:Except for possibly near the very end when a character addresses him as Horatio.]]

* MindScrew: The various plotlines may be a big confusing to keep track of, but for the most part they all follow a pretty simple NestedStory logic regarding a few easy-to-undestand rules... that is, until the characters in one story begin ''writing a story about their author''. Which physically affects him.

* BilingualBonus: The epigraph written in its original greek . . . and then not attributed to a source.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: Done intentionally by Flann O'Brien. The tale of Mad Sweeny as recounted by ''At Swim'' is filled with O'Brien's . . . ''creative'' translations of Middle Irish poetry. For example, a line that is usually translated as "the bell of saints before saints", is translated by O'Brien as "the saint-bell of saints with sainty-saints".

* DesignatedVillain: Invoked in-universe by the narrator and then subverted. Furriskey's sole purpose as created by Trellis was to be a depraved monster, but after Trellis is drugged, Furriskey marries a consenting wife and ends up not really being any more evil than any other given Trellis character.

** The narrator's story as a whole is filled with lots of dialogue that just consists of the characters discussing fairly unimportant things and agreeing with eachother, and three of the main characters are written nigh-identically. Naturally, lest the reader of ''At Swim'' think this was unintentional on O'Brien's part, a character who the narrator shows his book to outright criticizes these very problems, to which he responds to by listing the several ways in which the characters are different using long and obscure words to describe such inconsequential facts as their nose shapes.

* StylisticSuck: At one point in Orlick's story, he wants to portray a number of his characters as being extremely intelligent and educated. He accomplishes this by having them recite arcane and unrelated facts for a few pages.

* NoNameGiven: The protagonist of ''At Swim'', like that of ''[[TheThirdPoliceman The Third Policeman]]'', is never given a name.

The book was more or less created as a means for O'Brien to play with metafiction tropes. Extremely impressive, given that the work was published ''in 1939.'' Unfortunately, although it received much critical acclaim (even from none other than James Joyce), the book only sold 244 copies before the warehouse in which it was stored was destroyed in World War II.

''Synopsis of the plot:''
The book begins by introducing its unnamed narrator, a student living with his uncle. The book continually switches between first-person "biographical reminiscences" of the student's life, and a number of stories he had been writing in his spare time. After explicitly stating that "A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author...," we are presented with exactly this. One of these stories involves the Pooka [=MacPhellimey=], a species of human Irish devil with magical powers. Another follows John Furriskey, a character born already an adult and with a full memory without any experience to account for it. The third talks of the legendary Irish hero Finn [=MacCool=]. Furriskey, we later learn, was created via aestho-autogamy by Dermot Trellis. Trellis is an author who created Furriskey to be a character in his work, an {{anvilicious}} novel demonstrating the power of sin to corrupt even the most pure. Trellis has Furriskey and his other characters stay with him at the Red Swan Hotel where he can keep an eye on them and ensure that they do exactly what he says. Unfortunately, Trellis cannot control his characters while he is asleep, leading several of his other characters to drug him. Finn [=MacCool=], meanwhile, had been recounting the tale of Mad Sweeny, another character from Celtic mythology. Later, the Pooka is met by the Good Fairy. After discoursing on the nature of good, evil, even and odd numbers, and kangaroos, they begin a journey to the Red Swan Hotel. Along the way, they are met by a large number of other "stolen" characters, among them, Sweeny. It's eventually revealed that the event which brought the Pooka and Good Fairy to the hotel was the birth of Trellis's son by one of his female characters. When Orlick, as he is to be named, is born, his mother dies in childbirth. Due to the loss of his mother and the influence of the Pooka (who won influence over Orlick from the Good Fairy during a card game), Orlick - only half-fictional, on his mother's side, which gives him powers that Trellis' other characters lack - is inspired to write a book about his own father, whereby he may punish him after trapping him in the artificial framework of a story.
[[SelfDemonstratingArticle Conclusion of the foregoing]].

!!The book contains examples of

----

Flann O'Brien's first novel, ''At Swim-Two-Birds'' is a comic, metafictional work containing an intertwining celtic knot of stories wherein characters try to overthrow their author's rule by drugging him, among other things. The stories largely consist of characters taken (or to use O'Brien's words, "stolen") from a vast number of preexisting works. The cast ranges from aspiring authors to ordinary Dubliners to [[UsefulNotes/CelticMythology Mad Sweeny]].

* UsefulNotes/CelticMythology: Nearly a third of the book is based on this.

Flann O'Brien's first novel, ''At Swim-Two-Birds'' is a comic, metafictional work containing an intertwining celtic knot of stories wherein characters try to overthrow their author's rule by drugging him, among other things. The stories largely consist of characters taken (or to use O'Brien's words, "stolen") from a vast number of preexisting works. The cast ranges from aspiring authors to ordinary Dubliners to [[CelticMythology Mad Sweeny]].

* CelticMythology: Nearly a third of the book is based on this.

[[SelfDemonstratingArticle Conclusion of the foregoing]]

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