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Flann O'Brien, born Brian O'Nolan, (Ireland, 1911)
At Swim-two-birds (1939) ++, first published in 1939 like James Joyce’s "Finnegans Wake", is a novel in which the characters interact with the author like in Miguel de Unamuno's "Niebla" (1914) and Luigi Pirandello's "Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore" (1921). Written in a style that alternates between vernacular and erudite pomp, it is also an irreverent parody of Irish folklore and literature. An eccentric exercise in meta-fiction, it is a story within a story within a story. There's the book that O'Brien has written, the book that the student is writing inside his book, the book that Dermot Trellis is writing inside the student's book, and the book that Dermot's son Orlick is writing about Dermot. The author of the novel within the novel (Dermot) can't control his own novel's characters, who drug him and even seduce him, causing him to become the father of the man who will write a disparaging novel about him. At each level its labyrinthine plot can mix the characters and their author in the same story, a looping fractal structure that evokes a Moebius strip or an Escher oxymoron. To further disorient, the book begins and ends three times. The book has only one chapter: Chapter 1. There is no Chapter 2. The student and his friends Brinsley and Kelly get drunk. Then we read another extract from the student's novel in which Dermot Trellis begins writing his novel about the villain John Furriskey, whose creation is grotesquely celebrated in the press as a process of "aestho-autogamy". Dermot, however, admits that he borrowed the character from William Tracy, an "eminent writer of Western romances", who is an expert in having people born adults such that, after six miscarriages, his own wife delivered a middle-aged Spaniard. The sudden the birth of Furriskey as an adult also becomes the subject of a trial in which Trellis is accused of not having sketched him well enough. The third "biographical reminiscence" mentions that his uncle was upset that the student never exhibited the book for which he borrowed money. The student relates that he dind't leave his room for three months during winter. Then, disgusted by the filth of his bed, started attending college every day. The student and his friends Brinsley and Kelly go drinking again. We read another extract from the student's manuscript about Dermot Trellis’ manuscript about John Furriskey, and we read the fourth "biographical reminiscence" in which the student informs us that he lost the pages of his manuscript about a conversation between Furriskey and he divine voice. But then we get that precise detailed description of the conversation in which the mysterious voice instructed Furriskey to live a life of moral turpitude and admonished not to deviate from his mission of pure evil. Furriskey meets two other characters of Trellis' novel: Paul Shanahan and Antony Lamont. Shanahan is a character from Tracy's cowboy novels. We then read a newspaper announcement that Tracy died, and then we are introduced to two more characters of Tracy's novels: the cowboys Shorty Andrews and Slug Willard. A fifth "biographical reminiscence" informs us that the student, finding himself in a kind of author's block and having lost some of the pages of his novel, decided to delete the entire book and replace it with a short summary of events (which are only part of what we read so far): Dermot Trellis is working on a moralizing novel whose characters include the devil and magician Pooka Fergus Macphellimey and the depraved John Furriskey; the latter is informed by servant Peggy that Trellis the author of their novel has fallen asleep; Peggy has been sexually molested by both the elderly Finn MacCool (who is her father in Trellis' book) and by the cowboy Paul Shanahan; Peggy informs Furriskey that Trellis is powerless on his characters while asleep; Finn and Shanahan molested her during Trellis' sleep; Furriskey and Peggy fall in love, and swear to behave secretly according to moral virtue when Trellis does not force them to be evil, while waiting to escape Trellis' novel and get married; Trellis can't resist the beauty of Antony Lamont's sister Sheila, originally created as an innocent victim for Furriskey's seduction, and rapes her (rapes one of his own fictional characters); Furriskey pretends in front of Trellis that he is indeed carrying out the required mission of evil. Now the student's novel can restart from these events. While Dermot Trellis is asleep, Furriskey meets with Paul Shanahan and Antony Lamont, and someone retells the tale (with many poems) of Finn telling the story of the mad king Sweeny who was cursed to live on trees like a bird after insulting a saint. The conversation turns to Jem Casey, a common worker whom Shanahan considers a great poet. The sixth "biographical reminiscence" is about an old friend of the student's uncle, Mr Corcoran, who comes to visit. His son has just won a school prize and the student's uncle is sad that his nephew has won nothing so far. The two old men play records on a gramophone. The student then walks out and meets a friend, Kerrigan, who invites him to visit Michael Byrne who is a "painter, poet composer, pianist, master-printer, tactician, an authority on ballistics." Byrne gives a speech about the delight of lying in bed. Suddenly, Brinsley (who doesn't seem to be there with Kerrigan and the student) interrupts the narrative to point out that Dermot Trellis too is a "great bed-bug". Byrne replies to Brinsley that he never heard of Trellis, and now the student replies to Byrne that Trellis is an author, as if Trellis existed in the real world that the students and Byrne inhabit. Brinsley then explains to Byrne that the student is writing a book about this Trellis who never leaves his bed and who is writing a book about some other characters. Another extract from the student's novel informs us that Trellis only likes green books and therefore has never read a multitude of books, for example the Bible. The student then summarizes to Brinsley what happens next in his novel: Furriskey, who doesn't want to be a villain, puts sleeping pills in Trellis’ drink so that Trellis sleeps longer hours, allowing his characters more free time. Whenever he wakes up, the characters resume their mandated behavior. Furriskey marries Peggy, they open a shop and live happily "for about twenty hours out of twenty-four". Byrne and Kerrigan congratulate the student for the idea of the characters making the author sleep. Furriskey and Peggy hang out with Shanahan and Lamont. These two cowboys meet two decadent Greek servants, Timothy Danaos and Dona Ferentes, both deaf and dumb, who are employed by an "eminent Belgian author who was writing a saga on the white slave question". At this point Byrne pulls out a book titled "The Athenian Oracle, being an Entire Collection of all the Valuable Questions and Answers in the old Athenian Mercuries intermixed with many Cases in Divinity, History, Philosophy, Mathematicks, Love, Poetry, never before published". And he reads an extract. We then read a lengthy extract from the student's novel about the journey of the Pooka MacPhellimey. He wakes up as someone is knocking at the door but he can't see anyone: the visitor announces himself as an invisible Good Fairy. The fairy has come to tell the Pooka that Sheila is pregnant and about to give birth at the Red Swan Hotel. The Pooka and the Good Fairy discuss whether the Pooka's wife is a kangaroo. The fairy invites the Pooka to attend the event so that each can exert an influence (good or evil) on the baby, and "let the best man of us win the day". The invisible fairy jumps into the Pooka's pocket and they begin their journey. Along the way they meet Slug Willard and Shorty Andrews who are searching for a lost steer. They are surprised to hear a voice coming from the Pooka's pocket. They decide to follow the Pooka and the invisible fairy to the Red Swan Hotel, knowing that it's where Dermot Trellis lives. Then they meet Jem Casey, a small elderly man, who starts reciting his verses about working-men, and then Sweeny, the mad king who lives on trees. Sweeny falls to the ground and injures himself. Slug and Shorty have to carry him. They continue their journey reciting poems and singing. The seventh "biographical reminiscence" relates how his uncle drafted the student as a secretary for an odd meeting with four other people. The Pooka, the Good Fairy, Slug, Shorty, Jem Casey and Sweeny finally reach the fictional Red Swan Hotel. They play poker while the Pooka tells the story of how he played chess with Dermot Trellis and won the woman Granya. In the middle of the poker game, the fairy confesses to the Pooka that he has no money to pay what he lost at the game. The Pooka demands that the fairy surrenders any right to exert a benevolent influence on the baby that is being born. The fairy has no choice. The Pooka wins the soul of the newborn. Here the student interrupts the narrative to apologize for being unable to describe the birth of Trellis' illegitimate child, and so the baby is born already an adult. Sheila dies giving birth. Sheila's baby, Orlick, walks into the room and meets the characters already assembled there and even delivers a little speech to thank them for attending his birth. Here the student again interrupts his narrative and tells us how he spend his day, and compares it with a text taken from a volume titled "A Conspectus of the Arts and Natural Sciences". He then summarizes the situation: the Pooka brainwashes Orlick Trellis, Dermot Trellis is almost constantly asleep because Shanahan keeps administering sleeping pills, Furriskey and Peggy keep living a happy marital life. We then read another lengthy extract from the student's novel in which Furriskey, Shanahan and Lamont discuss music, Roman emperor Nero, and many other subjects. Shanahan then tells the story of Bartley Madigan who spent twenty years paralyzed in bed. The ninth "biographical reminiscence" is a conversation with Brinsley who complains that he cannot distinguish between Furriskey, Shanahan and Lamont. Then another summary of the student's novel so far, which in fact we haven't seen before: Orlick Trellis becomes a tenant in Furriskey's house, Shanahan and Lamont discover in Furriskey’s house a manuscript according to which Orlick has inherited his father’s gift for writing, The Pooka convinces Orlick (raised by the Pooka to be evil) to write an evil novel about his father Dermot Trellis so as to punish Dermot for what Furriskey, Shanahan and Lamont had to endure in Dermot's novel, as a personal revenge for what Dermot did to Orlick's mother Sheila (a rape that caused his death). And so now we read the novel that Orlick (a character invented by his father Dermot's rebellious characters) is writing in front of his father's characters. A priest, Moling, climbs into Dermot's room using a ladder crafted by angels. Shanahan interrupts Orlick complaining that his writing is too high-brow. Lamont too demands a simple story. And so Orlick begins the story again. And then a third time, every time beginning with the sentence "Dermot Trellis neither slept nor woke but lay there in his bed, a twilight in his eyes." The third time Orlick places the Pooka next to his father Dermot. The two engage in a cryptic and erudite conversation with terms such as "allogamy" (the fertilization of a flower by pollen), "arachnoid" (a membrane that surrounds the brain) "azoic" (an era without living beings), and "anabasis" (the march of Greek mercenaries to Cyrus' Persia). Eventually the Pooka exerts his magical powers causing Dermot Trellis to become a monster and his room to become a stinking inferno, and then bestowing on the hated author Dermot all sorts of agonies. Orlick's tale includes completely new characters named Furriskey, Shanahan and Lamont that are something for them to be proud of (e.g. Shanahan is a well-respected philosopher in Orlick's novel). And they even speak Latin. The Pooka delivers to them Dermot as "a fugitive from justice" and they (previously Dermot's characters, now Orlick's characters) hold a court trial and appoint the two mute Greeks as Dermot's defense lawyers. Trellis is on trial for the evil depiction that he chose for them in his novel: one after the other, the characters of his novel come to testify how he mistreated them. Even the dead William Tracy testifies against Dermot. The characters are ready to issue the guilt sentence but the student interrupts the story for the last "biographical reminiscence": he has passed the final examination and receives a watch as a graduation gift from his uncle and Mr Corcoran. The student concludes his novel: Dermot's servant Teresa burns by mistake Dermot's manuscript, thus destroying the characters of Furriskey, Shanahan, Lamont and Orlick, and thus freeing Dermot from the trial and saving him from the sentencing. The book ends with the student discussing whether Dermot was mad, and comparing him with the madness of Sweeny and Shakespeare's Hamlet, quoting fictional scientists on the matter of mental illness, and telling the story of the German who was fond of the number three and made everything a triad. And in the end it is the student (the author of the novel) who sounds like a madman (obsessed with numbers). Published only after the death of the author, The Third Policeman (1940) + is a comical romp that mixes absurdist theater, ghost story, Kafka, "Don Quixote", "Alice in Wonderland", David Foster Wallace's footnote-dense novel "Infinite Jest" and demented musichall farce. The narrator remain nameless throughout the book. He is a struggling scholar who, desperate to publish his life's work, accepts to murder and rob a man so he'll be able to pay for the publication (a veiled satirical stab at the cultural establishment). He finds himself stuck in an alternate dimension, which represents his Dantesque hell, in which the murderer is forced to endlessly confront both his victim and his soul/conscience (which, unlike him, has a name, Joe), except that it is a hell where the most ridiculous things happen. This nameless hero travels to an underworld that is both surreal and grotesque, including a visit to eternity, a labyrinth of underground chambers and corridors littered with wires and pipes that evokes a scientific laboratory and the mechanized plant of a factory. All the time he is rehearsing his scholarly research and all the time he is dialoguing with his soul/conscience, so that the novel is two books in parallel: one the elaborate pedantic mock-erudite discussion of the theories of a fictitious philosopher (who appears to be no less mad and absurd than everybody else), and the other a fairy tale of grotesquely implausible adventures. The story is set in rural world, the kind of world that is normally peaceful and bucolic. Here, instead, it is the antechamber of hell. The Dalkey Archive (1964) |
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