“TRUTH IS AN ODD NUMBER”: MODERNISM AND THE EARLY POSTMODERNISM OF FLANN O’BRIEN’S AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS

Abstract

This paper explores Flann O’Brien’s novel, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) in a unique position located right between modernism and postmodernism. Influenced by Irish Modernism as well as Irish Nationalism, the novel carries some significant elements from Irish mythology into the present day and creates a superimposition of the historical and the modern. Moreover, its postmodern take on creative processes and the autonomy of characters within itself reveals the novel’s highly metafictional and self-reflexive in nature, which at first seems to be in conflict with its modernist roots. In addition, the distinctive postmodernist essence of At Swim-Two-Birds can be considered to be the precursor to John Fowles’ Mantissa. Moreover, the clash of modernist and postmodernist elements in the novel emphasizes the difference between the two movements as O’Brien uses postmodernist techniques to challenge the modernist ones he, himself, uses frequently. In this regard, he demystifies concepts such as myth, literary creation and being a young artist through its humorous yet critical take on the unnamed narrator.