Over the last decades, the influence of the World Wide Web has been such that it has finally reached the hermetic, principled world of literature and called into question ideas of plot and story posed by Aristotle. With the rise of fictions published in electronic forms arose discussions about what kind of content would suit the new wave of hypertext. The argument goes that some authors have already been experimenting with some wild new concepts in printed books and they perhaps even seeded this idea of hypertextual facility. Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds is indisputably one of those books. With its three stories and thirty-two extracts, one can say that this novel assuredly possesses World Wide Web characteristics.

The first element that stands out of At Swim-Two-Birds is that it allows the simultaneous exploration of four levels of narratives. Not only do we enter the narrator's mind but we are also supplied with his letters from a racing tipster, his reminiscence of the Chistian Brothers's Literary Reader and miscellaneous literary extracts ranging from The Conspectus of Arts and Natural Sciences to The Athenian Oracle. Flann O'Brien's book about the narrator and his mind constitutes the first level of the story. Then we have the narrator's book about Trellis, Trellis's book about ‘sin and the wages attaching thereto’ and Orlick's book about his father. We have then four books in all and we could almost distinguish a fifth narrative level for Finn Mac Cool, The Pooka Mac Phellimey and Sweeny. As a matter of fact it seems that although they are part of Trellis's book, they make a story of their own because they are independent of any of the narrators in the story. The structure of the book is quite complicated, Ann Clissman exemplifies this point when she says that:     

At Swim is a book-web. All the threads that run into each other and are connected to each other in an intricate and diverse pattern. This pattern is connected in its parts by virtue of the spider who sits at the centre spinning a web which is ordered, bright and capable of infinite growth (Clissmann, 1975:90).

 This, as we shall see later in the second part of the analysis, posed many difficulties for the making of the hypertext version of At Swim-Two-Birds. Another characteristic of At Swim-Two-Birds is that it challenges the traditional ideas about beginning and closure. Indeed, it is a pivotal idea in the book to question the need for a definite beginning and ending. The narrator, to quote but one example, says that ’one beginning and one ending was a thing I did not agree with’ (O'Brien, 1939:9).  Besides, the fact that the novel begins with chapter one and ends without having reached chapter two clearly gives to the reader the idea that the novel is unfinished. The constant digressions distil the impression that the act of writing is permanent, each further extension deepens the sensation that there are no borders, the book can grow and grow indefinitely.               

To a great extent, At Swim-Two-Birds is also an interactive book. There are a great number of digressions and the reader is free to read them or continue the main narrative. It is often difficult to distinguish whose is the speaking voice but all the digressions are visually noticeable. The author also managed to extend the interactive aspect of the novel through the use of notes disseminated at various points of the book. There is an example on page 103 of At Swim-Two-Birds where the author appeals directly to the reader and advises him to flip back to page 60 for a fuller understanding of what is happening at this point of the story.  All in all, At Swim-Two-Birds constitutes what I would call a  ‘hypertext fiction in print’ as it sets not only some wild new possibilities for telling a story but also new ways of reading it.

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