Talk:At Swim-Two-Birds

Exclamation mark
Geogre - I've only ever seen the quote with a final exclamation mark. Perhaps this is because it was part of a publisher's blurb.

Reading and editing this page has made me want to read this book again - I'll have to get it back from my sister first though! Paul Tracy


 * Gotta meet that sister, then. :-) The reason I cut the exclamation point was just because it's terminal punctuation.  Inside the parenthesis, it would have ended the sentence.  Since we can always choose to quote all the words without the last punctuation mark, that's what I did.  A bit school marmish of me, I know.  I once taught that book to college freshmen.  My colleagues thought I was nuts, but one of my students who had been failing went from F's to A's thanks to that book.  She pointed out that the birth of the child in the hotel, with all the cowboys in from the woods and the pookah and Good Fairy, is a recollection of the Nativity, with the shepherds down from the hills.  An amazing observation, and no critic I've read had ever noticed it before. Geogre 23:50, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

O'Nolan's other novels
"While O'Nolan wrote other novels, none achieved either the level of complexity or playfulness of At Swim-Two-Birds, and thus his accomplishments have not been as recognized as those of his contemporaries. [citation needed]"

- says who? this is a rather sweeping statement, and a not terribly accurate one at that, given the tortuous complexity of The Third Policeman 82.26.165.174 20:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

- Well for what it's worth I'd agree absolutely with the original comment. The sheer scope of AS2B, the range of genres it pastiches and themes it mixes up is stunning. It is a far broader conception than TTP, which is really rather linear and based around a single joke. TobyJ


 * It so happens that I entirely disagree about the superiority of AS2B over TTP, which I think is a much more effective, subtle and mysterious novel than its predecessor. However, it's neither here nor there, as the original sentence contravenes WP: NPOV and also WP: Original research.  I am responsible for the major rewrite of the article on TTP and I have kept my private opinions out of it, quoting only primary and secondary literature on the subject.  Flann O'Brien articles on WP tend to be rather essayistic and POV in character and I will go through this one cutting any hints of same that I see.  Sorry, guys, everyone's entitled to an opinion - you just aren't allowed to use a WP article to voice it, unless you can find a source where some famous published person voices it for you. Lexo (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, well, a week later I retract the second part of that last sentence, having taken on board User:Geogre's reminder that sources are to be supplied for supporting things that are likely to be disputed. User:Jbmurray has restored the most useful of such comments, just before I was going to do so myself (honestly I was).  In the meantime, I still maintain that TTP is the better novel.  I certainly prefer it. Lexo (talk) 00:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

ἐξίσταται γὰρ πάντ' ἀπ' ἀλλήλων δίχα
Just a big thankyou to whomever added the Euripides reference - I've waited close on 40 years to know that! What a marvellous asset Wikipedia continues to be. TobyJ 11:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It`s been a long, long time; but shouldn`t the translation be: for all things exist separated from each other? --328cia (talk) 04:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I wish I knew. Unfortunately, my browser is refusing to properly support Greek text.  This is especially frustrating as I'm trying to learn classical Greek.  If anyone knows of a reason why an up-to-date version of Firefox should behave in this way, let me know. Lexo (talk) 23:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That seems a reasonable translation; I just used the one from E.P. Coleridge, assuming that he knew better than me. :o) In the context of the passage, I think Coleridge's translation is nice. I hope classical Greek is going well for you, Lexo. And I'm delighted you found this useful, TobyJ. -- Cian Synnott 216.239.33.25 (talk) 11:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, I just rechecked, and existatai comes from existêmi which does mean to 'displace', 'change utterly'. -- Cian Synnott 216.239.33.25 (talk) 11:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:FlannO'BrianAtSwimTwoBirds.jpg
Image:FlannO'BrianAtSwimTwoBirds.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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Fair use rationale for Image:FlannO'BrianAtSwimTwoBirds Mod.jpg
Image:FlannO'BrianAtSwimTwoBirds Mod.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 21:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

First edition cover
This is not the cover of the first edition--at least not the edition that was available in Ireland in 1939 and not the one O'Nolan sent to Joyce. The book is now at the Poetry Collection of the University at Buffalo. Rc65 (talk) 19:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Major rewrite needed
This article is not in good shape. I have noticed that conscientious editors have been cutting the more glaring examples of WP: NPOV and WP:Original research violation, but what's left is not very impressive. The only genuinely useful bit of the whole article is the translation from Euripides, and no source is given for the translation. If the translation is by a WP contributor then it has to go, unfortunately, as that constitutes original research.

There are no sources at all, let alone in-line citations, and the intro bit is not good. I may be more qualified than some to edit an article about AS2B since I once adapted it for the Irish national theatre (in 1998 but I'm not allowed to say so in the article, as contributors are not allowed to pass judgment on their own notability.) It's not my favourite O'Brien novel by any means (that would be Third Policeman) but I am sure it deserves a better article than this. I will have a go at improving the piece. Lexo (talk) 13:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You are absolutely incorrect. Please note that references are required for information that is likely to be disputed.  This does not mean "could have a question invented for."  A translation by a contributor is absolutely not "original research," as it is not research at all.  The translation is either correct or incorrect, but it is not incorrect for being done by a human being.  If I have a bit of Old English, must I not translate it?  I know the language well, and I translate quickly, but you would have me not only not translate it, but insist upon a copyrighted translation?  That's rather the opposite of the copy-left basis of Wikipedia.
 * A rewrite may be needed, but this is because the article has had three or four years of slow bits being added here and there, by Irish nationalists and anti-nationalists pruning and arguing this way and that. It is not because of references.  Wikipedia is not a regurgitation or clipping service, and it is not a sweaty palmed high school student's imaginings of a research paper.  We should cite sources for all statements that are controversial or little known or likely to be disputed, but jittery interruption of the text with the worst of all possible formats of citation (footnotes) is evil, and expecting a rewrite for them is an atrocity.  Geogre (talk) 13:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Lexo (talk) 22:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * To explain my rationale for reverting Geogre's edits: I too have a bit of Old English, but I am not going to start recklessly translating passages when I can perhaps find a more accurate existing translation. In this case, I concede that I wrongly mistrusted the citation on the Euripides quote.  I checked the source during my edit and realised that it was an accurate translation (my Greek is good enough to reassure me that it's at least not a flagrant mistranslation) and so all I did was move the ref to the end of the section where it belongs.  Regarding references, I agree that Wikipedia is not a clipping service but I would prefer it were a reliable clipping service than a forum for unreferenced belles-lettres.  (That's what Amazon reviews are for.)  I object to Geogre's choice of words ("atrocity"? "evil"?) to describe what I regard as a responsible and non-destructive edit of the article.  Before, it was a fan page; now, it's at least grounded in verifiable fact.  Finally, I discern irony in such a learned Swift scholar having an apparent contempt for footnotes. Lexo (talk) 01:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I have expanded the article a fair bit and have done almost as much as I can do without actually rereading the novel. The Clune and Hurson volume contains a lot of useful material, not all of which I have exploited to the full.  There's also an article by Rüdiger Imhof in which he (as usual) attempts to play down O'Brien's Irishness and emphasise his internationalism, but I have no respect for Imhof's work (because I don't trust a critic of English-language literature who can't write English) so I'll leave it for somebody else to look at. Hope the article is more useful now. Lexo (talk) 15:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Things still to do
We need sources for the Dylan Thomas quote and the Anthony Burgess rating: anyone have any? Also, a brief section on adaptations into other media. There are three dramatic versions that I know of: one by Audrey Welsh for the Abbey Theatre in the early 1970s, one by a UK company called Ridiculusmus in the mid 1990s, and one by me, also for the Abbey (Peacock stage) in 1998. Obviously I would prefer not to write about myself. I have requested feedback to see what else is needed. Lexo (talk) 12:51, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Unreliability of Cronin biog
In the course of researching and sourcing this article I've found two mistakes in Anthony Cronin's biography. He gives the title of the story O'Brien published in Comhthrom Féinne as "Scenes from a novel"; in fact it was "Scenes in a novel". He also mistranslates the title of O'Brien's MA thesis (written in Irish) as "Nature in Irish Poetry"; in fact the title Nádúirfhilíocht na Gaedhilge means "Nature Poetry in Irish". I warn future editors of this article to treat Cronin with caution. If he can make mistakes as elementary as these, then his reliability surely has a question mark over it. Lexo (talk) 15:06, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on At Swim-Two-Birds. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20050127181711/http://www.pgil-eirdata.org:80/html/pgil_datasets/authors/s/Salkeld,C/life.htm to http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_datasets/authors/s/Salkeld,C/life.htm

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Influence on Spike Milligan
Might be worth a mention if a proper source can be found. Many of the concepts in At Swim.. seem to have been incorporated, if not actually plagiarized by Milligan in both skits and his written work. Hanoi Road (talk) 14:18, 4 July 2019 (UTC)