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At Swim-Two-Birds

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( 14,133 ratings, 1,260 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien is a metafictional novel that explores multiple overlapping narratives. The central story revolves around a university student who procrastinates on his studies by writing a novel about a character who, in turn, creates his own narratives. This layered structure leads to a blend of reality and fiction, filled with humour, satire, and vibrant characters.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$5000

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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you appreciate innovative narrative styles and a playful interaction between fiction and reality. It's a clever and humorous work that blends various storytelling elements, appealing to those who love metafiction and a bit of Irish wit.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Along with one or two books by James Joyce, Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds is the most famous (and infamous) of Irish novels published in the twentieth century.

A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading, he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermot Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance. From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling on his head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing.

Hilariously funny and inventive, At Swim-Two-Birds has influenced generations of writers, opening up new possibilities for what can be done in fiction. It is a true masterpiece of Irish literature.

Series: Dalkey Archive Essentials

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    Along with one or two books by James Joyce, Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds is the most famous (and infamous) of Irish novels published in the twentieth century. A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When...
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

James Joyce praised the book for its comic spirit and humour, while Dylan Thomas's comments hint at its wild and unconventional appeal. Graham Greene considered it a standout of the century, comparing it to classic literary works such as Ulysses and Tristram Shandy.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781628973884

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 22 September 2022

Country: United States

Imprint: Dalkey Archive Press

Illustration: Illustrations

Contributors:

  • Introduction by William H. Gass

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 240

About the Author

Flann O'Brien, whose real name was Brian O'Nolan, also wrote under the pen name of Myles na Gopaleen. He was born in 1911 in County Tyrone. A resident of Dublin, he graduated from University College after a brilliant career as a student (editing a magazine called Blather) and joined the Civil Service, in which he eventually attained a senior position. He wrote throughout his life, which ended in Dublin on April 1, 1966. His other novels include The Dalkey Archive, The Third Policeman, The Hard Life, and The Poor Mouth, all available from Dalkey Archive Press. Also available are three volumes of his newspaper columns: The Best of Myles, Further Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn, and At War.

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