Believing that characters should be born fully adult, one of the writers tries to keep them all together--in this case, at the Red Swan Hotel--so that he can keep track of them and keep them sober while he plans the narrative and writes and rewrites the beginning and ending of the novel. But even when the primary writer stops writing to go out with his friends, the characters of the other (invented) fictional writers continue to live on in the narrative and comment on writing. Before long, the reader is treated to essays on the nature of books vs. plays, polemics about the evils of drink, parodies of folk tales and ballads, a breathless wild west tale starring an Irish cowboy, the legends of Ireland, catalogues of sins, tales of magic and the supernatural, almanacs of folk wisdom and the cures for physical ills, and even the account of a trial--and that's just for starters.

Totally unique, O'Brien's creation defies the conventions, both of its day and of the present, and even the most jaded reader will be astonished at the unexpected twists the narrative takes. Steeped in the traditions of the Irish story-teller, O'Brien keeps those traditions alive by creating multiple narrators to tell multiple stories simultaneously, while also skewering the very traditions of which he--and they--are a part.


"A pint of porter is your only man"   April 21, 2001
 21 out of 29 found this review helpful

Nature of this review: unsolicited, impertinent, self aggrandising.

Nature of the reviewer: benign, well lubricated, an admirer of our English tongue, part Irish and cursed thereby to all the ills of that unhappy and rain-sodden race, including the following: unreasoning pride; pathological loquacity associated with but not inseparable from a fondness for porter; a predilection for exaggeration (the mundane being otherwise intolerable); an inability to take anything seriously. Conclusion of the foregoing. At Swim-Two-Birds is unquestionably the best book on my shelves, constructed by one of the finest authors who ever graced the world. Mr O'Brien has exploded all the absurd and deceitful conventions of the fictioneer and put the pieces back together in a confection which must, from time to time, if you have any sense of humour whatsoever, have you laughing out loud. He wipes the ground with such pretenders to the throne of absurdity as Monsieur Alfred Jarry, and even with worthier contenders such as the excellent, late, and much lamented Mr B.S. Johnson. Be warned: if you read this, you will NOT be the same again.


A readable Finnegans Wake...   December 11, 2000
 9 out of 13 found this review helpful

Quite simply, the funniest and cleverest book ever written. After the first glimpse, it takes at least three years to stop trying to write and talk O'Brienese.


Pure delight   October 15, 2000
 7 out of 10 found this review helpful

It's wonderful and hilarious. The bit about the fictious characters in a novel plotting against their author while he's asleep is simply brilliant. And that's just one of the surprises...