The story of an Irish college student who - half to amuse himself and half to avoid work - writes an irreverent novel about the figures of Irish myth and legend in which characters come to life and riot against their author, At Swim is a wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture. OBrien opened up a whole new world of possibilities for fiction and subsequent novelists have played with his zany ideas, chief among them being the idea that characters in fiction have earned the right to be recycled - after all, theyve proven their reliability as characters! - not retired once their stories are finished.