Modernism — a literary and cultural phenomenon that sprung from the rapid societal changes of the late 19th and early 20th century — is usually thought to be a reaction against traditions. However, it’s possible to embrace archaic traditions, as the primitivist movement did, while rejecting ones that happen to be dominant at the moment. Traditions are not as set in stone or exclusive as they may seem. It’s also possible to celebrate many different versions of your country’s past, while at the same time breaking away from all of them. Nowhere are these contradictions so beautifully realised than in Flann O’ Brien’s first, and possibly finest, novel: the renegade At Swim-Two-Birds.
O’Brien, the literary pseudonym of Brian O’Nolan, was a Irish writer, columnist and a high-ranking civil-servant. His few novels are celebrated for their distinctive humour and convention breaking, although during his lifetime he was better known for his satirical journalism, written under various other pseudonyms. He used so many that it’s hard to verify a lot of his work, and this near-reckless love of multiplicity is captured in At Swim. Published in 1939, its mixture of metafiction and mythology were not appreciated by early critics — although it made a fan of James Joyce, and I think that says it all.
The narrative is framed by a truant university student (suspiciously evocative of a young O’Nolan) living with his prudish uncle, a clerk at Guiness. Dissatisfied with conventional stories he devises a work with multiple, completely unrelated protagonists, although he fails to consider the moral and philosophical consequences of this. Our characters include: the eldritch devil Pooka MacPhellimey, legendary Irish folk hero Finn Mac Cool, and John Furriskey: ‘a man born at the age of 25’ (we are informed that a lot of society’s problems could be solved if this trend caught on). In another layer to this metafictional tier cake, the student invents the character of Dermot Trellis, the supposed author of Furriskey who along with the other characters eventually band together and plot against him.
This should come as little surprise. Authors are well-known to be tyrants, dictating their characters to do things that they themselves would not be willing to do. And they are extremely wasteful, bringing new characters into existence when there are plenty out there already. Brave O’Brien, then, is here to challenge the orthodoxy of the writer, to set things to rights. The only problem is he himself appears to invent a new kind of novel in the process.
It’s not the earliest case of characters acknowledging their fictionality, but O’Brien’s vision is unmatched its audaciousness. The title of the book refers to the Irish river Snám dá Én, which is visited by another legendary figure, King Sweeney, in one of the sections of the book. In Mac Cool and Sweeney O’Brien gives us some very lyrical passages and verse poetry evocative of medieval literature. Where his wide-eyed love of language and complex irony intersect is not easy to pinpoint, but maybe there’s no need. Maybe, dear reader, we can just appreciate literature for literature’s sake.
At the same time we get a pastiche of westerns, and a strange philosophical discussion between the Pooka and an invisible fairy, in which, among other things, they argue about whether or not kangaroos are people. These moments of fecund creativity are interspersed with biographical reminiscences, in which the narrator wanders around Dublin, drinking stout and hanging out with friends and unsavoury characters — a reminder that true creativity is born out the banality of real life.
With the novels frequent flitting between texts, O’Brien seems to have spearheaded the technique of narrative whiplash commonly found in postmodern fiction, while anticipating our modern insatiability for consuming stories buffet-style. His embrace of all of Irish culture at once might be dizzying, but it’s held together by that straight-faced O’Brien humour.
For example, his creation of the now beloved poem ‘The Workman’s Friend’ might have merits on its own right, but it is the alchemy of At Swim’s structure which heavily influences how we read it, just as it influences every mad constituent part of the novel. In this case, the poem gains, yes, ironic, but also spiritual dimensions. You begin to consider that a humble pint of plain might be the de-facto Irish holy grail, an immutable icon, something more than what you go to when times are tough.
A synopsis of how all of these strange elements of the text come together would not do it justice. It’s helped by a unique structure — chapters are another convention O’Brien disregards. Instead, we get a series of extracts, the narrator’s life among them, which allow the different characters and stories to bleed and blend together. All this amounts to a text that is both a defiance and celebration of Irish fiction.
If you like the idea of Joyce, but find him unreadable, I put forward O’Brien as a worthy candidate in his stead. While it’s true that At Swim is not a simple novel, and might cause convulsions in certain readers, it is nonetheless a very entertaining one — a fit of laughter amidst the greyness of the early 20th century, and all the more a work of art because of it.
