Flann O’ Brian The Third Policeman
- Author: Flann O’ Brian
- Title: The Third Policeman
- Published: 1967
- List Reading Challenges 2018
- Monthly reading planning
Introduction:
- The unnamed narrator of The Third Policeman is
- …obsessed with the bizarre philosopher De Selby.
- In in order to publish a book about De Selby
- …the narrator agrees to murder a man for his money.
- However, the narrator’s partner in turn murders the narrator.
- Then the narrator is thrust into a bizarre journey through the afterlife.
- It was a wild and at times incomprehensible roller-coaster ride!
Ch 1-3:
- The novel begins with the narrator’s life.
- recounts the narrator’s whole life and
- the commission of a murder
- narrator dies… murdered by his partner in crime.
- Here’s the clue: neither he nor the reader knows this.
- Luckily I read a synopsis of the story before opening the book
- …so I tried to discover subltle clues
- …that would indicate the narrator is dead.
- I remained #Clueless.
Ch 4-7
- The fourth chapter marks the narrator’s full entry
- …into the afterlife.
- The narrator encounters a police barracks.
- Two policemen are obsessed with bicycles!
- O’Brian mentions bicycles 188x in the book
- …and for the life of me
- …I could not figure out what a bicycle
- was supposed to represent!
- #Frustrating.
Ch 8-12
- The narrator delves further and further into the strange world of the afterlife
- Down a hidden left-hand turn a short distance from the police station
- …there is an underground structure known as eternity.
- Now I really #NeedCoffee.
- The narrator follows the long road underground
- …only to reemerge into the world and
- …find out that he’s been dead sixteen years.
- Shocked….the narrator returns to the afterlife to restart the cycle.
Conclusion:
- I usually don’t explain the plot of a book
- …in this case I made an exception.
- If you decide to read this book….think twice.
- A piece of literature does have merit
- …even though it does not manage
- …to reach the common reader…like me.
- I did not enjoy the book, although there are
- ..many people who believe O’ Brian’s is an important
- …post modern Irish writer of the 20th C.
- O’ Brian wrote The Third Policeman in 1939-1940.
- O’ Brian was a morose drunk who led an
- …uneventful life as a civil servant in Dublin.
- He showed initial promise in that career
- …but the drink gradually sapped his enthusiasm.
- After reading this book I wondered if O’ Brian wrote
- while in the throes of whiskey.
- His mind must have been ‘expanded’ to develop many strange concepts.
- At times it is baffling
- ….and I tried so hard to appreciate it.
- Flann O’ Brian never found a publisher for this book
- …always rejected.
- After plodding through the book
- …I can see why a literary agent decided
- …it would not become a commercial success.
- Surprise, we are still reading it after 78 years!