INTRODUCTION
At Swim-Two-Birds is Flann O'Brien's first novel and an unconventional piece of literary work. It is indeed a non-linear tale that transcends the constraints of time and space. The story operates on several levels and has four beginnings, thus incorporating plots within plots, within plots ... The structure of the book is very complicated and the following summary will call your attention to its web-like organisation. The events of the book centre around the activities, thoughts, reminiscences and literary products of an unnamed narrator who is a student at University College, Dublin. The narrator is writing a story about an author who has decided to recycle well-known characters, Irish heroes, cow-boys, into his own story but he is unaware that they resent this situation. Discovering that Trellis, the author, loses his power over them when he is asleep, the characters bribe his maid to put sleeping draughts into his drink thereby allowing them unrestricted freedom of action. The novel then begins to get completely out of hand as the characters plan to revenge themselves against their author, which they put into effect by writing a story in which their author, as a character, is afflicted with boils, is soundly beaten and has a ceiling collapse on his head.
At Swim-Two-Birds in an innovative piece of writing that stretches the traditional conventions of story-telling techniques. The originality of this non-linear story is yet to appear in a linear form on the pages of a book. But would the quality of the story be altered if it was converted into a hypertext fiction? Would hyperlinkages enhance the story, or diminish it? A hypertext version of At Swim-Two-Birds could indeed revolutionise the reading experience of this novel by having the reader choose between the main narrative or the different paths that are embedded within it.
CONTENT
THE BOOK-WEB