Jenna's review
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
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 literature. It is an enormous favor for a writer to ask of his audience, but O’Brien’s magic comes from his ability to engage the reader so deeply within his words that one cannot help but to wonder about the reality of the world. By beginning The Third Policeman in what might be considered a traditional sense, his narrator leads the reader down a path that can only be described as both hilarious and hellish at the same time.
