Talk:At Swim-Two-Birds

message: Geogre - I've only ever seen the quote with a final exclamation mark. Perhaps this is because it was part of a publisher's blurb.
Reading and editing this page has made me want to read this book again - I'll have to get it back from my sister first though! Paul Tracy
*Gotta meet that sister, then. :-)  The reason I cut the exclamation point was just because it's terminal punctuation.  Inside the parenthesis, it would have ended the sentence.  Since we can always choose to quote all the words without the last punctuation mark, that's what I did.  A bit school marmish of me, I know.  I once taught that book to college freshmen.  My colleagues thought I was nuts, but one of my students who had been failing went from F's to A's thanks to that book.  She pointed out that the birth of the child in the hotel, with all the cowboys in from the woods and the pookah and Good Fairy, is a recollection of the Nativity, with the shepherds down from the hills.  An amazing observation, and no critic I've read had ever noticed it before. Geogre 23:50, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exclamation mark 

message: "While O'Nolan wrote other novels, none achieved either the level of complexity or playfulness of At Swim-Two-Birds, and thus his accomplishments have not been as recognized as those of his contemporaries. [citation needed]"
- says who? this is a rather sweeping statement, and a not terribly accurate one at that, given the tortuous complexity of The Third Policeman 82.26.165.174 20:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, well, a week later I retract the second part of that last sentence, having taken on board User:Geogre's reminder that sources are to be supplied for supporting things that are likely to be disputed.  User:Jbmurray has restored the most useful of such comments, just before I was going to do so myself (honestly I was).  In the meantime, I still maintain that TTP is the better novel.  I certainly prefer it. Lexo (talk) 00:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: O'Nolan's other novels

message: Just a big thankyou to whomever added the Euripides reference - I've waited close on 40 years to know that! What a marvellous asset Wikipedia continues to be. TobyJ 11:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It`s been a long, long time; but shouldn`t the translation be: for all things exist separated from each other? --328cia (talk) 04:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I wish I knew.  Unfortunately, my browser is refusing to properly support Greek text.  This is especially frustrating as I'm trying to learn classical Greek.  If anyone knows of a reason why an up-to-date version of Firefox should behave in this way, let me know. Lexo (talk) 23:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

text: That seems a reasonable translation; I just used the one from E.P. Coleridge, assuming that he knew better than me. :o) In the context of the passage, I think Coleridge's translation is nice. I hope classical Greek is going well for you, Lexo. And I'm delighted you found this useful, TobyJ. -- Cian Synnott 216.239.33.25 (talk) 11:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I just rechecked, and existatai comes from existêmi  which does mean to 'displace', 'change utterly'. -- Cian Synnott 216.239.33.25 (talk) 11:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  ἐξίσταται γὰρ πάντ' ἀπ' ἀλλήλων δίχα 

message: :Image:FlannO'BrianAtSwimTwoBirds.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:FlannO'BrianAtSwimTwoBirds.jpg

message: :Image:FlannO'BrianAtSwimTwoBirds Mod.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 21:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:FlannO'BrianAtSwimTwoBirds Mod.jpg

message: This is not the cover of the first edition--at least not the edition that was available in Ireland in 1939 and not the one O'Nolan sent to Joyce. The book is now at the Poetry Collection of the University at Buffalo. Rc65 (talk) 19:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  First edition cover 

message: We need sources for the Dylan Thomas quote and the Anthony Burgess rating: anyone have any?  Also, a brief section on adaptations into other media.  There are three dramatic versions that I know of: one by Audrey Welsh for the Abbey Theatre in the early 1970s, one by a UK company called Ridiculusmus in the mid 1990s, and one by me, also for the Abbey (Peacock stage) in 1998.  Obviously I would prefer not to write about myself. I have requested feedback to see what else is needed. Lexo (talk) 12:51, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Things still to do 

message: In the course of researching and sourcing this article I've found two mistakes in Anthony Cronin's biography.  He gives the title of the story O'Brien published in Comhthrom Féinne as "Scenes from a novel"; in fact it was "Scenes in a novel".  He also mistranslates the title of O'Brien's MA thesis (written in Irish) as "Nature in Irish Poetry"; in fact the title Nádúirfhilíocht na Gaedhilge means "Nature Poetry in Irish".  I warn future editors of this article to treat Cronin with caution.  If he can make mistakes as elementary as these, then his reliability surely has a question mark over it. Lexo (talk) 15:06, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreliability of Cronin biog 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Might be worth a mention if a proper source can be found. Many of the concepts in At Swim.. seem to have been incorporated, if not actually plagiarized by Milligan in both skits and his written work. Hanoi Road (talk) 14:18, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influence on Spike Milligan