On swimming-two-birds
On swimming-two-birds (full German title on swimming-two-birds or Sweeny on the trees , also as Zwei Vögel beim Schwimming and In swimming-two-birds or Sweeny on the trees ; original English title: At Swim-two-Birds ) is a 1939 novel by the Irish writer Brian O'Nolan under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien (1911-1966). He is considered an example of the use of metafiction and an early example of the postmodern novel .
content
The title refers to the Middle Irish name Snámh dá Én ( New Irish Snámh dá Éan , "swimming two birds") for a place at a ford over the River Shannon or an island in the Shannon, where the legendary Irish King Sweeny is said to have once stayed .
The Greek motto ἐξίσταται γὰρ πάντ 'ἀπ' ἀλλήλων δίχα comes from Euripides . It means: "Because it is proper that all things change".
The first-person narrator is an unnamed Irish literary student in Dublin . Since he doesn't believe that a book should only have a beginning and an end, he invents three storylines. This includes the story of Pooka Fergus MacPhellimey and the nagging "good fairy" who lives in the Pooka's pocket. The second storyline describes the young man John Furriskey. In the course of the novel it turns out that it was invented by Dermot Trellis, the writer of Wild West novels, another invention of the student. In the third storyline, the student describes Irish mythical characters such as the giant Finn Mac Cool and the crazy King Sweeny. Your actions are occasionally ridiculed.
In the framework story , the student reports from his life. He lives with his uncle, who at least initially works as an accountant at the Guinness brewery in Dublin and whom he despises. The uncle suspects the student of not studying hard enough. He is evidently right about that, because the student spends his time writing books, lying idle in bed and socializing in pubs.
The initially independent storylines are increasingly linked. So John Furriskey meets two more of Trellis' characters, including Antony Lamont. They decide to give Trellis a sleep aid to lead a quiet life instead of acting like the bad guys. In return, Trellis invents Sheila, a sister of Lamont, whom he believes Furriskey seduces and betrays. However, thanks to her beauty, Trellis falls in love with Sheila herself. As a result, she has her son Orlick, who turns out to be a gifted novelist. In the meantime, all characters, including those of the other storylines, have come to Trellis' hotel "Red Swan". They encourage Orlick to write a novel in which Dermot Trellis is found guilty and then tortured. When Trellis is near death, the student passes his exam and the book ends with several conclusions. The last ending is about Sweeny pondering the barking of dogs and the alleged judgments of two respected neurologists about the state of Trellis' soul. Finally, a previously unmentioned German is described who does everything three times and thus also writes “Farewell” to his wife three times.
The text is divided into sections, some of which are quite short. Often facts are explained, for example as apparent background information or by naming the rhetorical figure used. Occasionally, its meaning is pointed out at the beginning of a section, such as “End of the book, penultimate”.
background
O'Nolan had studied late medieval Irish literature and had written his master's thesis on it. His knowledge goes into the novel in many places. Many of Sweeny's poems come from old sources, some of which have been changed into comical forms, but are essentially rendered without irony.
Trellis means " climbing frame " in German .
Brian O'Nolan had only used the pseudonym Flann O'Brien for a few letters to the editor until the novel was published.
reception
"It is a book in a thousand ... in the line of Tristram Shandy and Ulysses , German: It is the one book among 1000 books ... in line with Tristram Shandy and Ulysses."
The reviews after the book was published were mostly negative. The content was criticized as a schoolboy brand of mild vulgarity (for example: “the mild obscenity of a school boy”) and long passages in imitation of the Joycean parody of the early Irish epic are devastatingly dull (“long sections are an imitation of Joyce's parody of the early Irish epic devastatingly boring ”). James Joyce praised the book. He referred to O'Brien as a real writer ("true writer") and certified him the true comic spirit ("the truly funny spirit"). In 1939, Jorge Luis Borges praised the complexity of the book, which he compared to a labyrinth. He also noted that Joyce's influence was evident.
Keith Hopper classified the book as Menippe satire .
According to a 2011 list by the US American Time magazine, the work is one of the 100 best English-language fiction books of the period from 1923 to 2005.
Edition history
The first edition was published by Longman in the United Kingdom in March 1939 . It was the first book written by O'Brien to be published. The publisher accepted it on the recommendation of Graham Greene . Sales were sluggish at first, also because of the outbreak of World War II. In 1940 almost the entire stock of the book was destroyed in a bombing raid during the Blitzkrieg . In 1950 the novel was republished by Pantheon Books in New York, but also with low sales. In 1959 the book was published by MacGibbon & Kee in London, later by Dalkey Archive Press.
The first German-language edition appeared in 1966 under the title Zwei Vögel beim Swimming by Rowohlt-Verlag . In 1981 the book was also published in the GDR . In 1989 a new translation was published by Haffmans Verlag under the title In swimming-two-birds or Sweeny on the trees. In 2002, a modified edition of the second translation was published under the title Auf swim-two-birds or Sweeny on the trees. The novel has been translated into numerous other languages.
German title
The correct translation of the original title At Swim-Two-Birds is controversial. In the original, the novel contains the following passage as the only reference to the title:
"After another time he set forth in the air again till he reached the church of Snámh dá Én (or Swim-two-Birds) by the side of the Shannon."
Accordingly, Snámh dá Én is a place on the banks of the Shannon. In the transmission by Lore Fiedler, the place is referred to as "Two birds swimming". In the 1989 version, the title of the novel was adapted to the English version and expanded at the same time. It reads In swimming-two-birds or Sweeny on the trees and thus emphasizes the place name more clearly. The title, On Swimming Two Birds or Sweeny in the Trees , chosen since 2002, implies that Snámh dá Én is an island.
Expenses (selection)
- At swim-two-birds. Longman, London 1939
- At swim-two-birds. Pantheon Books, New York 1950
- At swim-two-birds. MacGibbon & Kee, London 1959
- Two birds swimming. Translated by Lore Fiedler. Rowohlt , Reinbek 1966
- Two birds swimming. Translated by Lore Fiedler. People and World , Berlin 1981
- In swimming-two-birds or sweeny on the trees. Translated by Harry Rowohlt and Helmut Mennicken. Haffmans , Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-251-20071-2
- At swim-two-birds. Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, London, Dublin 1998
- On swimming-two-birds or sweeny on the trees. Translated by Harry Rowohlt and Helmut Mennicken. Kein & Aber, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-0369-5104-0
Movies
- In Swimming-two-Birds, Austria 1997, with Harry Rowohlt, directed by Kurt Palm
- An Irish film has been in planning since 2011. The actor Brendan Gleeson is making his directorial debut.
Plays
The book was used several times as a template for plays.
Intertextual reference
O'Brian's characters Antony Lamont and his sister Sheila and Dermot Trellis appear in Gilbert Sorrentino's novel Mulligan Stew (1979). In it, Lamont is an unsuccessful, self-proclaimed "experimental" writer. Sheila is married to his rival Dermot Trellis, who also writes a western novel for Sorrentino and has published a pornographic work called The Red Swan (like the hotel at O'Brien). According to Sorrentino, the premise "Fictional characters want to escape their author" has taken over from Auf swim-two-birds and added the element "absolute artificiality". Mulligan Stew is dedicated to "the memory of Brian O'Nolan - his 'virtue hilaritas '". The novel is also preceded by a quote from O'Brian.
Others
In 2001 the Irish writer Jamie O'Neill published the novel At Swim, Two Boys (German: In the sea, two boys ). The biographical interview published in 2002 by Ralf Sotscheck with Harry Rowohlt, who translated At Swim-two-Birds and numerous other works by O'Nolan into German, is called In Schlucken-zwei-Spechte.
literature
- Ralf Zimmermann: The disappearance of reality. About the possibilities and limits of creativity in Flann O'Brien's 'At Swim-Two-Birds' and 'The Third Policeman'. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1999
- Keith Hopper: Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist. Cork University Press, Cork 1995, ISBN 978-1859180426
- Anthony Cronin : No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien. Fromm, New York 1989, ISBN 978-0880641838
Individual evidence
- ↑ Two birds swimming. Translated by Lore Fiedler. Volk und Welt , Berlin 1981, p. 295 (notes)
- ↑ Flann O'Brien: One for the boys. Times Literary Supplement , accessed March 31, 2018
- ^ A b Keith Hopper: Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist. Cork University Press, Cork 1995, ISBN 978-1859180426
- ↑ Anthony Cronin: No Laughing Matter: The Life and Times of Flann O'Brien. Fromm, New York 1989, ISBN 978-0880641838
- ^ Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Non-Fictions. Penguin, London 2000, ISBN 978-0140290110
- ↑ Description of the book , accessed on October 31, 2011
- ↑ Article on O'Brien's 100th birthday in the Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 30, 2011 .
- ^ "This is a possibility out of At Swim-Two-Birds, taking that book a little further, adding another integer to its basic idea. Absolute artificiality ”from Gilbert Sorrention's notebook, quoted from Stefanie Sobelle: Mulligan Stew and Gilbert Sorrentino's Aesthetics of Failure. Retrieved January 26, 2012