castle of illusion

Flann O’Brien was an Irish journalist, Gaelic scholar and dedicated drinker whose real name was Brian O’Nolan. Of his very few books, The Hard Life and The Dalkey Archive are slight but funny, and The Third Policeman is a vision of hell which does not quite come off, but At Swim-Two-Birds is probably a masterpiece. Philip Toynbee, the novelist and critic, once said: “If I were cultural dictator… I would make At Swim-Two-Birds compulsory reading in all our universities.” Joyce said of Flann O’Brien: “There’s a real writer with the true comic spirit.” This book owes something to Joyce, but this may mean merely that both Joyce and O’Brien were Irish.

The book is sometimes difficult, but it is no literary heavyweight. It is even, which Joyce’s work is not, whimsical. The narrator is an Irish student who, when not lying in bed or pub-crawling, is writing a novel about a man named Trellis who is writing a book about his enemies who, in revenge, are writing a book about him. The book is a book about writing a book about writing a book. This is very modern (compare the Argentine Borges) in that it does not pretend that literature is reality. The student-narrator is interested not merely in literature but in Irish mythology, which enables him to bring in Finn MacCool (Joyce’s Finnegan) and indulge in comic-heroic language which sounds as though it is translated from the Erse: “The knees and calves to him, swealed and swathed with soogawns and Thomond weed-ropes, were smutted with dungs and dirt-daubs…”

Flann O’Brien discovered a way of counterpointing myth, fiction and actuality through the device of a sort of writer’s commonplace-book. There is no sense of recession, of one order of reality — myth or novel or narration — lying behind another: all are on the same level of importance, and this is what gives the contrapuntal effect. The scope of fiction is both extended and limited — limited as to action (not much happens, though plenty is heard about) but extended as to technique. It is a very Irish book and very funny. But it still awaits the popularity it deserves. (from Anthony Burgess’ 99 Novels)