At Swim-two-birds - Hardcover

O'BRIEN, Flann (pseudonym Of Brian O'Nolan, 1911-1966)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0261615181 ISBN 13: 9780261615182

Publisher: MacGibbon and Kee [1939], 1960

Synopsis

At Swim-Two-Birds

About this title

Review:

If you try to read it too closely, the structure of this book will drive you crazy. Ask me how I know. On the first level, it seems to emanate from the addled mind of a navel-gazing Irish university student stumbling around thinking about writing a book or a school paper. As I said, you can go nuts trying to follow it. Yet At Swim-Two-Birds is a modernist masterpiece, the best-known fictional work of Irish newspaper writer Flann O'Brien. Published in 1939, the book's great charm is O'Brien's constant reinvention of the English language, fueled and altered by an Irish sensibility and language; the sentences come out in a torrent of musical, drunken ramblings.

About the Author:

Brian O'Nolan (Irish: Brian Ó Nualláin) (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966) was an Irish novelist, playwright and satirist regarded as a key figure in postmodern literature. Born in Strabane, County Tyrone, he is best known for English language novels such as At Swim-Two-Birds, and The Third Policeman (written under the nom de plume Flann O'Brien) as well as many satirical columns in The Irish Times and an Irish language novel An Béal Bocht (written under the name Myles na gCopaleen), O'Nolan has also been referred to as a "scientific prophet" in relation to his writings on thermodynamics, quaternion theory and atomic theory.

About this edition

• Publisher: MacGibbon and Kee [1939]
• Publication date: 1960
• ISBN 10: 0261615181
• ISBN 13: 9780261615182
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 316