At Swim, Two Birds, by the satirical, comic
writer, Flann O’Brien (1939) relates the story of a young indolent Dublin undergraduate
who lives with his humourless uncle and spends too much time drunk or in bed – he likes his blankets. The book starts with attempts to create a
novel, three different plots are introduced. Discourses on alcohol, plays, lost useful knowledge and tobacco follow, never reaching a valid conclusion. Money is a scarce in pre-war Dublin, a lucrative sideline in betting is undertaken with quite predictable impecunious results. O’Brien is a witty
writer with his unreal characters suffering for all of humanity in a Flann O’Brien Hell where moral guilt and intimidation, in the form of figures from Celtic mythology are confronted and the hero or in this case the anti-hero completes his novel and passes his exams. The neglect of inverted commas to mark conversation, in the book, is reminiscent of James Joyce, who is mentioned in passing, coupled with some tours of Dublin to do justice to his mentor.
Recently, Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell and Stuart Townsend all successful Irish actors, met in Los Angeles in order to recreate At Swim, Two Birds on film. The book always exceeds the film, because, until now, the imagination is poorly represented on film. CGI is changing all of this.