ABSTRACT
Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds is a novel of digressions, of deviations, of interruptions and circumlocution. The complex structure of At Swim-Two-Birds' complicit yet independent fragments abounds with parodies, quotations, repetitions, and an excessive self-consciousness of form and self-reflexivity. Radical digressivity is the name for a form of non-originary fragmentation whereby digressions proliferate to the point of wholly dissolving any stable centre or core. A radical digressivity thus results in a text of contamination, whose styles, forms, and frames intermingle. Plot or narrative progression is diverted and derailed, and becomes secondary to the digressive units. The intricate, radical structure of At Swim-Two-Birds contains four different authors. Digression is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a 'departure or deviation from the subject in discourse or writing'. As a radically digressive text, At Swim-Two-Birds is beset not only with the difficulty of staying on a single path, but with the prior problem of beginning, of establishing a single, solid route.
