The Third Policeman

by Flann O'Brien

The Third Policeman

book data

1065 ratings, 4.08 average rating, 199 reviews (more data...)

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published

October 1st 1986 (first published 1967) by New Amer Library Trade

binding

Paperback, 208 pages

isbn

0452259126 (isbn13: 9780452259126)

description

A comic trip through hell in Ireland, as told by a murderer, The Third Policeman is another inspired bit of confusing and comic lunacy from the...more

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All ratings | 5 stars (460) | 4 stars (341) | 3 stars (182) | 2 stars (56) | 1 star (26) | avg 4.08

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Jacob

Jacob rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

08/14/07

bookshelves: favorites

Read in January, 2002

When he was unable to find a publisher for this, his second novel, Flann O'Brien famously stashed the manuscript away in a drawer and told his friends that it had been lost. Some commentators actually think that he was scared of what he had been written, that something about it upset his meek Catholic soul. I don't know about that, but the book's undoubtedly disquieting. The novel sometimes feels like the clanking boiler room behind the scenes of another, less nonsensical novel, and ta...more

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Paul

Paul rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

05/17/08

bookshelves: novels

This is one of the 1001 books you have to read before you visit the 1001 natural wonders you have to eat before you die. Something like that. I already read At-Swim-Two-Birds a lonnnnng time ago, and that was quite amusing - mad Irish postmodern humour which the Pythons surely must have known and loved. So this one should be quite amusing too.

Later : this was one I should have read when I was 13. It's like I don't think I'll ever bother listening to Genesis now, however brilliant they may ha...more

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3 comments

Núria

Núria rated it:

(review of isbn 8493485489)

11/17/08

bookshelves: 2-ni-fu-ni-fa, 2008, literatura-en-ingles, prestados, siglo-xx

Read in November, 2008

recommended to Núria by: Donald Barthelme
recommends it for: los que tengan paciencia suficiente para aguantar pesadillas surrealistas

En el primer capítulo de la segunda temporada de 'Lost', cuando por fin abren la escotilla y entran en el búnquer, el libro que está leyendo en este momento Desmond es 'El tercer policía' de Flann O'Brien. No me acordaba yo de este detalle. Puede que no me fijara y, si me fijé, seguro que me pensé que se trataba de una novela de detectives al uso (no tiene nada que ver con detectives y algunos de los creadores de 'Lost' han reconocido la influencia de esta novela en la trama de la serie). ...more En el primer capítulo de la segunda temporada de 'Lost', cuando por fin abren la escotilla y entran en el búnquer, el libro que está leyendo en este momento Desmond es 'El tercer policía' de Flann O'Brien. No me acordaba yo de este detalle. Puede que no me fijara y, si me fijé, seguro que me pensé que se trataba de una novela de detectives al uso (no tiene nada que ver con detectives y algunos de los creadores de 'Lost' han reconocido la influencia de esta novela en la trama de la serie). No volví a hablar del libro hasta que lo vi encabezando el cánon personal de Donald Barthelme. Harold Bloom también la cita como una de las mejores novelas del siglo XX. Y la contraportada lo compara con Lewis Carroll, pero en oscuro. Aunque a mí me recuerda más a Samuel Beckett. Pero a pesar de todos estos referentes la novela no me ha gustado. No me ha gustado, no.

El protagonista es un hombre con una pierna de madera que un buen día se olvida de su propio nombre. Se crió en un internado y allí entró en contacto (y se obsesionó) con la obra de De Selby, un filósofo loco que quiere demostrar científicamente las teorías más absurdas como que la tierra tiene forma de salsicha. El protagonista quier publicar una magna obra (la definitiva) sobre De Selby pero no analizando tanto la obra del propio De Selby como la de todos sus críticos*. En definitiva, quiere hacer criticismo del criticismo, pero para esto necesita dinero. Así que decide matar un viejo que está forrado para quedarse con su dinero. Pero las cosas no salen como estaba previsto y el protagonista termina en una comisaría de policía con dos policías muy raros y un tercero que nunca aparece y del que los otros dos opinan que está absolutamente chiflado. Los dos primeros capítulos, antes de llegar a la comisaría, me gustaron mucho, pero luego se desinfla y a pesar de que en varios momentos parece que la cosa toma carrerilla para alcanzar el vuelo, para mí nunca consigue despegar. El giro final también me gustó mucho (ciertamente es brillante), pero lo cierto es que todo lo del medio me aburrió bastante.

Creo que el principal problema del libro es que el aire de pesadilla pocas veces funciona. Puede funcionar en Franz Kafka, pero porque sus pesadillas son las del mundo real. Lo que pasa es que la mayoría de veces las pesadillas están tan desconectadas del mundo real que para mí me es imposible entrar en ellas. No me dicen nada. Sí, me encanta contar mis pesadillas a otros, pero me parece tedioso tener que oir las de otros; ¿qué importancia tienen si no están para nada relacionadas conmigo? El otro problema del libro es que a mí nunca me pareció tan raro, tan divertido y tan horroroso (no en el sentido de "malo" si no en el sentido de "dar miedo") como dicen que es y como pretende ser. Para mí le falta consistencia y empaque. Da la sensación que son una serie de ideas buenas pero mal conectadas. A parte de la relación de simbiosis entre un hombre y su bicicleta, a mí las únicas ideas que me interesaron son las relacionadas con 'Lost': el tipo raro de la cabaña, una caja que contiene algo que te puede hacer conseguir todo lo que quieras, los dos policías que siempre están haciendo mediciones raras, un mapa en el techo, un búnquer subterráneo en el que el tiempo no pasa, etc. Sí, una obra singular e inclasificable y valiente y tal, pero que no cuaja para nada. De aquellas que me gustaría que fueran mejores.

______________
*La obra de De Selby nos es explicada con pelos y señales básicamente a través de una serie de larguísimas y tediosas notas a pie de página. Entiendo que pretende ser una parodia inteligente, pero es tan largo que no tiene puñetera gracia y acaba siendo un galimatías insufrible. No me avergüenza decir que me salté muchas. Y es que no se contenta en describirnos exhaustivamente (y agotadoramente) las teorías absurdas de De Selby, sino que encima tenemos que aguantar también la relación de las disputas que hay entre los diferentes críticos de De Selby y la supuesta auténtica identidad de estos. Un muermo....less

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4 comments

Lori

Lori rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

05/21/08

bookshelves: fiction, lost-lit

Read in May, 2008

Before I begin, let me warn you.
***DO NOT READ THE INTRODUCTION UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE READ THE NOVEL** I made the mistake of reading the intro first, and that intro contains a spoiler. It gave away the entire premise of the novel. So I feel like I was gyped a bit here.

That being said, even tho I read the novel knowing the outcome, it didnt ruin the story for me at all.

TTP is hung up on de Selby (who is this dude?) some of his theories. Here are a few that really interested me: He fe...more

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4 comments

Powells.com

Powells.com rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

11/24/08

One of the funniest books I have ever read, but also one of the most profoundly unsettling. This is a story told by a robber/murderer who ends up at a police station and discusses such vital issues as the location of eternity, the earth's sausage shape, houses full of strawberry jam, and bicycles (of the utmost importance). The narrator's utter confusion becomes our own, leading to some of the most hilarious dialogue ever put to paper — though by the end of the book you might just be laughing ...more

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seisyll

seisyll rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

11/04/08

Read in August, 2008

“Naturally, no explanation is given of what is meant by ‘abusing’ water but it is noteworthy that the savant spent several months trying to discover a satisfactory method of ‘diluting’ water, holding that it was ‘too strong’ for many of the novel uses to which he desired to put it.” — the footnote 4 of chapter XI.

A perfect book, as has been encountered a few times before. By my likes and prefs at least. Let's count:

1. A vast array of sketchy superstitions.
2. It's o...more

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saxonb

saxonb rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

04/05/08

Read in March, 2008

People turn into bikes, policeman decide how old people live by placing invisible cloths over them when they are born, underground shelters where times doesn't stop and the seemingly chaotic but highly systematic writings of an eccentric savant named de Selby to help guide us through all our thoughts and experiences.
The Third Policeman is a surreal, satirical and often highly comedic book in which the actual story matters very little in the context of the whatever the hell O'Brien is trying to...more

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Jenna

Jenna rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

10/23/07

bookshelves: irish-literature

Flann O’Brien asks something exceedingly personal of his readers when they encounter his work The Third Policeman, and many may not be wholly up to the challenge. For this book, a wild romp through some of the most interesting and most terrifying aspects of the human mind, O’Brien asks for his readers to throw down what they know as common sense, and to allow what might otherwise be considered the irrational to become at least plausible as he liberally breaks conventions of modernist literat...more

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Xysea

Xysea rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

01/02/08

Read in January, 2008

Okay, well I enjoyed this book immensely.

Some of it was just flat out bizarre, but other parts of it were brilliant! I went to Wikipedia to read up on its history, and was amazed to find that it was written almost 20 years before it was published and shelved due to lack of interest. Thank goodness things change, people learn to embrace the unusual and that someone, somewhere decided it was a good idea to publish this novella.

As mentioned by some of you, while I was reading, the bicycle...more

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4 comments

James M. Madsen, M.D.

James M. rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

02/09/08

bookshelves: fiction, metaphysics, speculative-fiction, tolkien

Read in January, 2007

What a strange book! I picked this up partly because of its connections both to J.W. Dunne's equally odd book An Experiment in Time (which influenced not only Flann O'Brien but also J.R.R. Tolkien and others) and partly because of its reputed connections with the plot of the TV series Lost. Seeking an explanation of Lost in The Third Policeman is problematic partly because the producers of the series, while recommending the book as a source of potential answers to questions raised by the serie...more

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Chris

Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

10/08/08

First amazing book I've newly read in a year or so. Sort of a Alice in Wonderland in a dark Russian farce with bicycle romance. Who could resist?
And the ending, the very ending, tied it all together and added an unexpected depth. Loved it.

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W.H Rauf

W.H Rauf rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

11/20/08

bookshelves: crime, dark-and-haunting, essential, fantasy, fiction

recommended to W.H Rauf by: Desmond Hume
recommends it for: Everyone with a healthy sense of humor

To quote Will Ferrell as he played James Lipton in an SNL sketch, This book is so good that there is no word that can be used to describe this book so I'm forced to make a new word: Scrumtulescent.

This book is so scrumtulescent.

I first thought the humor in this book is a little too weird. But you got to read it for yourself to find out why it's so hillarious. Just like if you never watched the film Little Miss Sunshine and people described the plot to you, you'd think that it's a sick, t...more

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Ryan

Ryan rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

07/02/08

Read in May, 2008

recommended to Ryan by: my old boss
recommends it for: everyone

I just read this book and its great. It was my first foray into Irish literature. I like what they've done over there.
Anyway, I'll go through some of the elements you will find in this book. There are far-fetched pseudo-scientific theories posited by a fictitious philosopher named deSelby. There is a place called eternity where fantastic indescribable things happen. There are ridiculous experiments by policemen who convert light into screams by crushing it in a vice. (They trap the screams in...more

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Fence

Fence rated it:

(review of isbn 0586087494)

05/18/08

bookshelves: 823-912, irish, mystery, sff

Read in April, 2007

Recently this book has been brought back to public attention by the creators of Lost who said that anyone who has read it may have a greater insight into their TV show. But that shouldn’t be the reason you pick up this book. Flann O’Brien is one of the pseudonyms of Brian O’Nolan. Well known in Ireland for his satirical columns in the Irish Times which he wrote for almost 30 years, beginning in the 1940’s. This is my first Flann O’Brien novel, and I think I’ll have to read some more....more Recently this book has been brought back to public attention by the creators of Lost who said that anyone who has read it may have a greater insight into their TV show. But that shouldn’t be the reason you pick up this book. Flann O’Brien is one of the pseudonyms of Brian O’Nolan. Well known in Ireland for his satirical columns in the Irish Times which he wrote for almost 30 years, beginning in the 1940’s. This is my first Flann O’Brien novel, and I think I’ll have to read some more.

The plot revolves around a murder and a theft. Or maybe about the bicycles becoming human and humans turning into bikes. Possibly it is about the nature of guilt. Or maybe it doesn’t have a plot at all, because it is surreal. At the very least it is surreal; weird and wtf-ish might be more accurate a description. But it is still readable and enjoyable.

The blurb on my version calls it a “hilarious comic satire”. I didn’t think it was hilarious, but I do think that if you had the patience to read it out loud it might be hilarious. It seemed to me that a lot of what was entertaining about this read would have been better if it was performed. I’m not quite sure why I think this, probably due to the use of language in the book.

In case you aren’t familiar with the theory behind men turning into bikes I give you this extract:

‘Everything is composed of small particles of itself and they are flying around in concentric circles and arcs and segments and innumerable other geometrical figure too numerous to mention collectively, never standing still or resting but spinning away and darting hither and thither and back again, all the time on the go. These diminutive gentlemen are called atoms. Do you follow me intelligently?’
‘Yes.’
‘They are lively as twenty leprechauns doing a jig on top of a tombstone.’ [...:]
‘Consecutively and consequentially,’ he continued, ‘you can safely infer that you are made of atoms yourself…The gross and net result of it is that people who spend most of their natural live riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycles as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.’
I let go a gasp of astonishment that made a sound in the air like a bad puncture.
‘And you would be flabbergasted at the number of bicycles that are half-human almost halg-man, half-partaking of humanity.’...less

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Jim

Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

06/26/07

Read in January, 1999

recommends it for: Irish/Absurdist lit fiends

In the opening pages of the novel, the narrator, a one-legged man who has lost both his parents, falls in with a scoundrel called John Divney, who concocts a plot to rob Old Man Mathers’ cash box. The narrator agrees to this conspiracy, and the two men lay in wait for the unsuspecting fellow. When Mathers comes along the road, Divney hits him with an iron bicycle pump and urges the narrator to finish him off with a spade. The narrator complies, and when he does so he feels “the fabric of the...more In the opening pages of the novel, the narrator, a one-legged man who has lost both his parents, falls in with a scoundrel called John Divney, who concocts a plot to rob Old Man Mathers’ cash box. The narrator agrees to this conspiracy, and the two men lay in wait for the unsuspecting fellow. When Mathers comes along the road, Divney hits him with an iron bicycle pump and urges the narrator to finish him off with a spade. The narrator complies, and when he does so he feels “the fabric of the skull crumple up crisply like an empty eggshell.” What he does not feel is sorrow, sympathy or regret. Then things get weird.

Divney disappears with the money, leaving the narrator to bury the body. Eventually, Divney returns and reveals that he’s stashed the black box under a loose floorboard in Mathers’ house. The narrator stumps off to retrieve it and finds Mathers inside the house. Convinced he’s seeing a ghost, he proceeds to converse with him about all manner of things. What neither he nor the reader realize is that Mathers is not the only spook in house.

The murderer’s quest for the black box takes him to the last place he’d want to find himself: a policeman’s barracks. Here Sergeant Pluck and Policemen MacCruiskeen and Fox — the third policeman — bring law and order to a district inhabited by people whose atoms, after years of riding over rocky roads, are mixed up with their bicycles, leaving them part man, part machine. Time speeds up and stands still. The characters descend into labyrinthine networks of nonsensical rooms that are reminiscent of the dull deviousness of choose-your-own-adventure novel and “off the map” experiences inside of video games. This, we are told, is “Eternity,” and it feels like it.

O’Brien’s narrator is a disciple of the fictional philosopher De Selby, a man with an explanation for everything. De Selby’s theories are furnished in the footnotes, which become increasingly bloated and constitute a critical commentary that runs parallel to the story. In addition to De Selby, we are given glimpses of his colleagues and critics abroad: Basset, Du Grabandier, Hatchjaw, Kraus and Le Clerque, some of whom may be the same people in disguise. Given O’Brien’s penchant for pseudonyms, this should hardly come as a surprise. It is a catalog of names that would not be out of place in an Edward Gorey story.

Then there are the critics’ critics, exponentially generating blather. Everyone has had the feeling of lostness that comes with pointing two mirrors at one another and watching the worlds inside of worlds multiply into infinity; O’Brien has created its fictive equivalent and populated it with all manner of “queer ghastly things”. Doppelgängers lurch about, and a stifling aura bears down on everyone and everything until you can almost feel the déjà vu coming. It is a tale of ordinary fantasy; there aren’t any monsters in the moat, but the beast in the jungle is a bloke with a bicycle pump who brains you the moment your back is turned.

The Third Policeman is like a bad dream that refuses to end. The plot seldom excites, yet the metaphysical drama lends the proceedings an aura of dread that never quite goes away. Its tone is intensely impersonal; still, the proceedings crackle with humor. Howard Moss in The New Yorker captures what are, perhaps, The Third Policeman’s rarest qualities: “For no reason one can definitely point to, it is as strangely affecting as it is funny.”

(Excerpted from review published in the LA Weekly in May 2005:
www.laweekly.com/art+books/wls...)

...less

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Sarah

Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

08/21/07

bookshelves: currently-reading, finishedbooks

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: readers with enough patience for the surreal

I've been reading this gradually in between other books because there is a lot to take in -- the plot still eludes me, because the important points seem to be the encounters with other individuals, places and things. I think O'Brien might be making fun of Yeats, but I don't think I'll know until the end.

Done! finally... I spilled coffee all over this book, and had to wait for it to dry before I could pick it up again. Next time, I will make sure there is nothing left in my travel mug before ...more

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Brent

Brent rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

01/24/08

Read in January, 2008

This is a marvelous little book that I picked up because of its appearance on Lost and the subsequent revelation that one could gain some insights into the mysterious island by reading the book. (Lostpedia)

It is a wickedly funny book with a text that veers off wildly in many directions. (I'm no expert on Irish literature but this appears to be a peculiar feature of that family of letters.) You may find it diff...more

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Adriaan Krabbendam

Adriaan rated it:

(review of isbn 156478214X)

12/04/08

bookshelves: read-fiction

recommends it for: anyone

Inverted stitched whodunnit in some kind of afterlife, where people turn into bycicles and bycicles into men, to say the least. O' Brien is one of those masters capable to turn an original idea into the most extreme consequences. The result is a wondrous, imaginative novel, and it belongs to the best reads ever, along Patchen, Borges, Lautréamont, Rabelais, Jarry, enfin, I'd give it 9 stars at the least.

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Albert

Albert rated it:

(review of isbn 0007247176)

09/16/08

Read in August, 2008

flann is most definitely your man

"of all the many striking statements made by de Selby, I do not think that any of them can rival his assertion that 'a journey is an hallucination'. The phrase may be found in the *Country Album* cheek by jowl with the well-known treatise on 'tent-suits', those egregious canvas garments which he designed as a substitute alike for the hated houses and ordinary clothing. His theory, insofar as i can understand it, seems to discount the testimony of human e...more

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Psydeshow

Psydeshow rated it:

(review of isbn 0007247176)

06/05/08

Another in the line of Absuridst/satire books I was reading.

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it managed to dance that fine line between absurdism and gibberish very well, keeping you in an almost permanent state of almost having it figured out but never quite getting there (which is probably why the producers of Lost have endorsed it recently, though don't let that put you off).

Probably one that you appreciate after having read more than during the reading itself, in part b...more

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