Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

** spoiler alert ** Terrible in many different ways, good in a few.

Absurdly pretentious: long bits of poetry copying the style of ancient Irish which serves no purpose other than as a Joyce reference. Random encyclopedia definitions for no reason. No plot really whatsoever.

Swathes of this book are just unreadable, so entirely dull so as to put you to sleep. Why do we need medical definitions that have nothing to do with the story? Why do we need 20 pages of descriptions of cress? Why do we need 20 pages describing a man being tortured in obscure ways?

O'Brien seems like he was a 25 year old competing with his peers to be seen as clever, and wanted to prove to everyone else that he knew big words and could write metafiction and he could be surreal. Good job O'Brien, you can. That doesn't make a readable book.

The only good bit was in the middle where the Pookah and the Fairy are having an adventure, and it is pretty funny in a surreal way. There is basically nothing to hang on to at any other point.

If you want something surreal but that actually has structure, unlike trying to live in a house with no walls or ceilings or floors which is At Swim Two Birds, read the Third Policeman. God what a waste of time this book was.

It might be impressive as a feat - in terms of a metafiction writer writing a book about a writer writing a book about [like 3x more deep] but nobody actually wants to read that. No one reads Finnegan's Wake, no one actually wants to hang out with Duchamp's Fountain. Les Chants de Maldoror has the same problem: great, it is technically impressive in some way that speaks to like 10 Irish literary historians in the 30s. But whatever it had 90 years seems to have faded away. You can write a commentary on Irish literature and still make it accessible, instead of whatever the hell this was.