At Swim-Two-Birds

An indolent college student creates a chaotic fictional world in this classic of Irish literature: “A marvel of imagination, language, and humor” (New Republic). In this comic masterpiece, our unnamed narrator—a student at University C... Read more

An indolent college student creates a chaotic fictional world in this classic of Irish literature: “A marvel of imagination, language, and humor” (New Republic). In this comic masterpiece, our unnamed narrator—a student at University College, Dublin, who spends more time drinking and working on his novel than attending classes—creates a character, a pub owner named Trellis, who himself is devoted mainly to writing and sleeping. Soon Trellis is collaborating with an author of cowboy romances, and from there unspools a brilliantly unpredictable adventure that James Joyce himself called “a really funny book.” “’Tis the odd joke of modern Irish literature—of the three novelists in its holy trinity, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Flann O’Brien, the easiest and most accessible of the lot is O’Brien. . . . Flann O’Brien was too much his own man, Ireland’s man, to speak in any but his own tongue.” —The Washington Post “As with Scott Fitzgerald, there is a brilliant ease in [O’Brien’s] prose, a poignant grace glimmering off every page.” —John Updike “One of the best books of our century.” —Graham Greene Less