At Swim

In a letter to an agent Irish modernist Flann OBrien characterized his bracing At Swim-Two-Birds as a very pamper affair, unbearably queer perhaps. There was little need for such hedging. At Swim-Two-Birds is OBriens masterpiece; readers now lament he couldnt maintain this high pitch of queerness throughout his c beer. The novel is unbearable only in the sense of ticklish or hair-raising or improbable. It is zany in shipway twain breathtaking and deadpan. OBriens zaniness is a world unto itself. Im passive awaiting the biography Ive ordered from Amazon (Anthony Cronins Life and measure of Flann OBrien). I suspect Ill learn something on that point of the origins of the OBriens style. The life of a writer, his life as reading and his social life, go quite a ways toward explaining his particular struggle with words, his response to the words that came before him and his conversion of the words spoken round him. It seems clear that at least(prenominal) part of OBriens zaniness arises from a high pedantry unhinged by the atmosphere of Dublin pubs. The man who wrote At Swim-Two-Birds obviously frequented a society where the order of the day was learned conversation: show, debate, witty disagreement.

The novel is almost a reference practise of the varieties of such conversation: it couldnt turn out been written had the writer not divided many a pint with the best and the not-so-best of Dublin society. happy and perverse as the novel is, only inattentive readers are liable to get lost. OBrien gives more signposts in this stimulate than many a modernist writer has given. One is duly warned anyhow: the narrator informs us on page one that he doesnt see why a book needs to have one beginning and one ending. Here are the works opening words: Having placed in my mouth qualified bread for three minutes chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual erudition and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a empty and preoccupied expression. I reflected on... If you want to get a secure essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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