Here's why we like Flann O'Brien:
- He's Irish, from the land that brought us Guinness
- He never existed (being a pseydonym)
- And he wrote a book called
At Swim-Two-Birds, which, honest to god, Andre Breton probably kept under his pillow at night.
Let me see how I can best summarize this book: A lazy university student is writing a book about a man who runs a hotel and is writing a book whose characters conspire against him and drug him to the point of a narcotic coma so they no longer have to do what he wishes to write, and can instead live their lives the way they please.
The university student has a theory, also, that enough literary characters have been created, and all books should now be populated with characters created in other, earlier works, because this will save the writer and reader the trouble of having to get to know a whole new crop of people every time a new book is opened. So, for instance, Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary walk into a bar, etc. etc. etc. As such, the characters in the book he is writing --the drugged author and all of his "creations" -- have all been lifted from other works or from mythology. This idea opens the doors to myrid Surrealistic possibilities.
And finally, we would like the book were none of the above true, as long as it still contained this passage:
"We must invert our conception of repose and activity...We should not sleep to recover the energy expended when awake, but rather wake occasionally to defecate the unwanted energy that sleep engenders. This might be done quickly - a five-mile race at full tilt around the town and then back to bed and the kingdom of the shadows."Vince out.
