At Swim-Two-Birds

“A good book may have three openings entirely dissimilar and inter-related only in the prescience of the author, or for that matter one hundred times as many endings.”

The student’s views about literature hint at the structure that will follow. At Swim-Two-Birds is a novel that contains elements of other novels; the student is self-aware enough that his three proposed openings are contained within a fourth opening, which is his introduction. The irony of the student’s claim is that his four introductions ultimately become a single story. They are at once connected and disconnected.

“Thanks for your faith in me, it is very comforting to know that I have clients who are sportsmen who do not lose heart when the luck is ‘the wrong way.’”

At Swim-Two-Birds provides numerous investigations into the nature of fiction. In addition to the manuscript excerpts that the student reads during the novel, the gambling tips are a separate kind of fiction. Verney’s letter contain plots and character arcs in which he appeals to the reader for trust. He requires the reader’s investment in the same way that the student wants audiences to invest in his own works of fiction. The gambling tips are an alternative form of literature that works toward similar goals but for different purposes.

“I am every hero from the crack of time.”

In the context of the novel, different characters can appear an infinite number of times across all fiction. Minor characters from Trellis’s work appear in works by other authors, while Trellis borrows characters from other books.