Reviews

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien

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mark_lm's review

3.0

Although frequently humorous and completely comprehendible at a small scale, I found O'Nolan's most famous work to be very complex and much of it to be quite a slog to get through. At times it seems to be either a parody or imitation of Joyce, but it has peculiar elements, such as the relationship of the author or purported author(s) to the characters and the characters to each other that if not unique are certainly unusual. Many odd things are here including found texts and instructions for reading a gas meter. I found The Third Policeman to be much more approachable. It might be that if I were more familiar with Irish legends, Irish literature, and Gaelic I could get more out of this.

randybo5's review

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1.0

DNF

menfrommarrs's review

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1.0

I felt lost most of the time. Although written waaaay before there was such a term as bizarro fiction, I think this qualifies. Had I not read the Introduction, I would have been much more lost than I was.

Not being Irish, I think I missed a lot because of cultural and Irish literature references.

The story was a Nested Doll of stories within stories within stories, with seemingly no distinction of the switch.

In addition the basic point seemed to be shirking school duties, drinking, puking and lying in bed all day unwashed. Funny?