Blog

Week 2 starts here, and if you’ve been reading along at home, that’ll place you on page 54 (Darlkey), at the very moment of John Furriskey’s unusual birth.
I’m enjoying the heck outta the book so far. In particular, the Fin Mac Cool stuff just slays me. It struck me that beyond a predeliction for unusual names, this also does ASTB have in common with Pale Fire and Gravity’s Rainbow: the big brainflood (aka the use of detail as an opiate).
Hope you’re enjoying yourself and keeping yer socks clean. Best I can tell we have something like 20 folks on the march. Nice healthy headcount. This one seems a little easier on the eyes than the last two, and I’m guessing most of us will make it through. What say we pick up the pace just a tad in the coming week?
Next week: See you at the bottom of page 115 (Dalkey), where the two of them are “talking with each other in a lay of generous staves.”

*****
From the intro to the Dalkey edition:
“According to its author, Adolf Hitler hated At Swim-Two-Birds so vehemently he started World War II in order to interfere with its sales.”
*****
Welcome to Day 1 of Week 1, which means for them that are marching, the marching starts roughly…now! In fact, once I hit Save, I’ll be heading off to BART, ASTB in hand. Looks like it starts with someone eating, which is always a good way to kick off really any work of art. Except for perhaps a trumpet solo.
If this is your first march, (1) yay! and (2) here’s how it works: we’ll tackle the book in 40-50 pages/week chunks. Don’t sweat it if you fall a little behind — most folks do at some point. Try to resist racing ahead so as to accentuate the commonality of referential data. Every Tuesday, I’ll post a thread right here on cv.com. Use that thread for comments, which can be as low-key as “I am the ‘At Swim-Two-Bird Man of Alcatraz.’” or as thought provoking as [very thought provoking example here].
(And of course: If you’re re-reading the book, please do yer level best to avoid spoilers.)
And that’s it. Both the kit and the kaboose.
Thanks much for coming along. This is our third book, and it’s the one I’m the most outright excited to read. In fact: I’m way too excited. In fact: I think my brain is vibrating.
I’m reading the so-called Dalkey Archive Press edition and will be using that for page break references — if you have a different edition with different breaks, just let me know and I’ll see what we can do to synch up….
Next week: Let’s meet at page 54 (Dalkey), just before the “Extract from Press regarding Furriskey’s birth.”

Hi,
Next Tuesday we start up Deathmarch #3. This time out it’s another relatively short book — At Swim-Two-Birds written by Irish author Flann O’Brien and published back in 1939. I’m especially looking forward to this one — a brilliant darkly comic romp, or so I’ve been told by some really smart people. But that said, I’ll keep this post a bit on the ultrashort side since I’m on the road this week and up way past my bedtime. Hope to see you out on the trail….
-Cecil