So I read this and I'm not sure I got anything out of it...

So I read this and I'm not sure I got anything out of it. I liked the Third Policeman but this was a little two maximalist for my pea-brain. What would you say should be taken away from this?

>What would you say should be taken away from this?

a pint of plain is your only man

Read The Tain, and Buile Suibhne. It'll clear up some of what it's doing. Like how Ulysses is framed on Greek myths but is really about Joyce creaming his trousers, it's one of those for people who love what they're mocking to an extent. Same with the Catullus references.

It should be noted that when genre fiction first started and first started getting a bad name, cowboy stories were the YA equivalent of the day.

For some reason I got it in my head to familiarize myself with the authors alluded to in If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. Otherwise I never would have attempted to read something like this. Ulysses is way beyond my depth.

The conclusion of your syllogism is fallacious, being based on licensed premises.

When stags appear on the mountain high
With flanks the colour of bran
When a badger bold can say goodbye
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN

Who are the authors referenced?

licensed premises is right

honestly I've only managed to place Mishima, O'brien and Nabokov. I'm not sure who the writer of the ritualistic tribe story is supposed to be nor the Polish guy nor the Spy novel guy. The latter two are a little too generic to feel like anyone in particular to me.

Its just postmodern wank. I'm surprised you've read If On a Winter's Night and you're still asking this question because obviously that too is just postmodern wank. I'm not saying its bad but there are no morals and themes its just about thought games and some philosophical ideas peppered in.

one of the funniest books ive ever read

>i'll pretend there's nothing about rising national identities in the preceding 50 years in the book
>o'brian still triggers the IRA over the uncle bit
kek

I guess I just didn't have enough historical context to see that

it's useful to have the broad strokes of the context. search around joyce and griffith (Gaelic revivalists); yeats and lady gregory (celtic revivalists); the souls for how annoying all those groups got (which was a group who opted out of all the Home Rule debates and wouldn't let /pol/ join). there's a lot more too it but if you look for a documentary about flann it'll probably explain more about his political and social situation. (for instance, he wrote under a pseudonym because as a civil servant he wasn't allowed publish anything that might be construed as an opinion)

way better than the third policeman imo

I beg to differ. At Swim Two Birds is more of a stylistic excercize, like seems to suggest, juggling and interweaving plots and multiple layers of fiction, and it does so brilliantly with absurd humor, wonderous lyricism and near dadaist poetry - Finn MacCools endless tirades are fountains of beauty... But it's also a studenticose experiment before its a novel, and it suffers under its ambitions to break all sorts of narrative boundaries.

The Third Policeman in contrast puts the reader directly inside one such metanarrative as ASTB is full of, using the techniques and territories gained to make the reader inhabit and experience the absurdities from within a seemingly straight and linear narrative, the true nature of which is not disclosed until the very end.

I love both books dearly, but if i had to pick one, I'd go with TTP.

I just learned today that Flann O'Brien was born just a few minutes down the road from me and it never gets mentioned at all around here.

It's mad

>"postmodern wank"
>applies it to purposefully-layered works

I don't think you know what this means. Seems like this your go-to for works beyond your understanding.

Postmodernism doesn't even apply to art of that era. O'Brien was writing when 20th century modernism was peaking, and he belongs in the same cateory as Joyce and Beckett and is at least as great as both of them, albeit overlooked in comparison. Ignore the ignorant.

Great novel, was read it at bedtime as a kid.
Prefer the Third Policeman though.

What a fantastic fucking writer. And funny as hell to boot. (the books, not the man.)

Postmodernism in the 40s?

The really great thing about at swim two birds is its incorporation and integration of Irish myth. The legends are portrayed through the eyes and mouth of an Irish narrator, bringing them to life within all layers of the narratives. In many ways it's a work of satire and parody, but great respect is paid to the native mythos -ridiculing the cleric that slew sweeny while romanticizing the ousted Irish pagan.

I named my dog Sweeny because of this book. Pic related

Agreed.
Then you'd love Desmond MacNamara's Book of Intrusions. He was mates with Flann as I recall.
>You heard it here first.

Just looked it up. Seems I missed out. Thanks for the rec!

Did anybody here read the rest of O'Brien's oevre?

An Béal Bocht is hilarious.
I found The Dalkey Archive to be spots of brilliance mixed up with rehashes of The Third Policeman and filler material. But I should probably give it another try

Yes, have read the lot.
The Poor Mouth is great, but it's even better if you are familiar with all the writers he's parodying: Peig, Maire, Tomas O Criomthainn, Mici MacGabhainn and the likes.

DA doesn't reach the heights of TP, which is unfortunate. It's like the curates egg I suppose.

As far as I understand he wrote the dalkey archive in an attempt to get his ideas from TP published in a more digestible form. The scenes involving De Selby and Joyce are all over the top (not to mention the Saint Augustine part). But the plot is drawn out with tedious telenovela style trivialities which dont even have the drama to justify that label.

But it has been close to 20 years since I read it. Something might have escaped me.

Did you read it in Irish or translated?

I want to read it i Irish but mo dhia my Irish just isn't good enough yet

>Read English
>Browse through Irish
It's short and has pictures.
You'll be in stitches reaching for an focloir poca.

I lived over the hill from John Montagues homeplace, his death was criminally underreported for someone we studied in school. Saw Theo Dorgan and Seamus Heaneys widow at the funeral

we're just not a particularly literate country.
That said Strabane (Flann's home town) is one of the biggest shitholes in northern Ireland, and frankly a good half of the population are illiterate.

I work in Lurgan so Stranbanistan isn't so bad.

My sympathies.

You know I find when you cross the border everything suddenly just gets slightly less shit, despite the objectively worse roads, internet and general public services. The south just isn't as grim as norn 'irn.

Ignorance is bliss, they don't want to know what happens here. Generally why I despise free staters

Ah, they're not so bad. Often just totally ignorant off the north though. It doesn't exist and never happened to a lot of them.

They find the idea of a kickin based on your last name hard to believe.

Yeah there's a reason the border counties are SF power centres, less people had the luxury of turning their heads away. But it happens to nordies who live outside it for a while too, I don't recall O'Brien making much of his background in Strabane, Heaney rattled a lot of people about our intransigence when he'd been living comfortably in Dublin for decades. Kavanagh did it and then let rip his hostility to rural Monaghan folk as well when he finally got to the city.

Ah but at the same time like, I can see why they left. I have no intention of staying in strabane any longer than I have to, and I honestly can't see why anyone would.