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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN num: 9781564782144
ISBN number: 156478214X
Label: Dalkey Archive Pr
Manufacturer: Dalkey Archive Pr
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 200
Printing Date: March 01, 2002
Publishing house: Dalkey Archive Pr
Sale Popularity Level: 33445
Studio: Dalkey Archive Pr
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The Third Policeman is Flann O'Brien's brilliantly dark comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence. Told by a narrator who has committed a botched robbery and brutal murder, the novel follows him and his adventures in a two-dimensional police station where, through the theories of the scientist/philosopher de Selby, he is introduced to 'Atomic Theory' and its relation to bicycles, the existence of eternity (which turns out to be just down the road), and de Selby's view that the earth is not round but 'sausage-shaped.' With the help of his newly found soul named 'Joe,' he grapples with the riddles and contradictions that three eccentric policeman present to him.
The last of O'Brien's novels to be published, The Third Policeman joins O'Brien's other fiction (At Swim-Two-Birds, The Poor Mouth, The Hard Life, The Best of Myles, and The Dalkey Archive) to ensure his place, along with James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, as one of Ireland's great comic geniuses.
With the publication of The Third Policeman, Dalkey Archive Press now has all of O'Brien's fiction back in print.
Amazon.com Review:
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 warped imagination and lovably demented pen of Flann O'Brien, author of At Swim-Two-Birds. There's even a small chance you'll figure out what's going on if you read the publisher's note that appears on the last page.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Like O'Brien's masterpiece At Swim-Two-Birds, this novel is so unusual that it has to be read to be believed. Be forewarned that the book's forward (as well as many reviews) contains a serious spoiler. While trying not to give too much away, the plot proceeds thusly: the nameless protagonist is badly taken advantage of, is manipulated into committing a terrible crime, loses something of value, and spends the rest of the book trying to get some oddly corpulent and decidedly uncooperative policeman to help him get it back.
The humour is very much reminiscent of Monty Python's Flying Circus, consisting largely of highly charged conversations between a character who plays each situation completely straight (the protagonist) and a character whose responses and behavior make no sense whatsoever (the policemen). Our sympathies lie firmly with the protagonist throughout and certainly no one will dispute that the conclusion (especially Divney's well-deserved comeuppance) is only just. The trip to Eternity (where you can have whatever you want, but nothing ever changes) is especially revealing, and the succession of absurd impossibilities is a unique and interesting take on the afterlife. Dark, chatty, surprising, suspenseful, and weirdly funny. Deduct at least one star if you aren't a fan of this kind of nonsensical humor.
Rated by buyers 
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The Third Policeman is a great, easy read for anyone interested in an early modern twist on bending reality. Its theme has been largely picked up in recent popular culture via movies and television shows, but without much of a reference or credit. If you like artful game-changes and final-chapter plot twists that give completely new perspective on the entirety of the preceding book, then you will enjoy the literary talents of O'Brien in this work.
Some similar works of late would be any movie by M. Night Shayalaman; the televisions show Lost; or any recent thriller that keeps you guessing.
Rated by buyers 
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Too bizare for my taste and way out of my literary league. However, if you want a taste of what hell could be like, go for it.
Rated by buyers -
It is unfortunate that Flann O'Brien isn't assigned reading, and that one is generally forced to discover him for oneself. The Third Policeman is one of the funniest books I've read. Unlike "At Swim-Two-Birds," O'Brien's other classic, it's plotted more or less linearly. The plot is fantastically involved, and is -- uniquely in modernist writing -- one of the best things about the book.
A very skeletal plot summary: the narrator (one-legged and nameless) inherits a pub, but having no interest in running it he leaves its management to the thieving John Divney. Divney persuades the narrator that the pub is losing money so it would be a good idea to kill the local miser and steal all his money, so they kill him. When they go to recover the money, the narrator is blown up by a mine and enters an alternate universe dominated by policemen who are obsessed with bicycles, Russian dolls, and eternity. Happening to be available when a criminal is required, the narrator gets sentenced to death, but wheedles a trip to eternity out of the policemen before he is to be hanged. While there he collects immense quantities of gold, but can't bring them back to earth because of a technicality. He escapes at the last minute because an army of one-legged men, who have come to rescue him, distract the policemen long enough for him to slink away on a highly-sexed she-bicycle. He returns to his village to find John Divney fat and middle-aged, but the sight of him scares John Divney to death and they return together to the police station.
There is a lot of humor, mostly deadpan and dark; the policemen's world is a beautifully conceived noneuclidean pastoral, and the running gags are hilarious -- the "atomic theory of the bicycle" (if you spend too long on a bicycle you become more than 50% bicycle and start leaning on walls; your bicycle, on the other hand, becomes more than 50% human and starts misbehaving with women) and de Selby's theories about night being due to air pollution are the funniest of the many recurring gags in the book. The writing is beautiful too, though somewhat more restrained than "At Swim-Two-Birds"; the style is a stripped-down version of Joyce, about halfway between "Ulysses" and Beckett's "Watt." The policemen's dialect (e.g. the many uses of the word pancake) is a spectacularly successful innovation.
In short, this book is a must-read. Read it.
Rated by buyers -
I read this as part of my Lost reading challenge. The main character--a one-legged scholar obsessed with illogical philosopher de Selby--participates in a robbery and murder with his roommate. While looking for the hidden loot, he is suddenly transported into an adult Alice in Wonderful of corrupted logic (something that he finds terrifying despite his love of the messed up philosopher), and must deal with three bizarre policeman obsessed with bicycles. It is a bizarre view of death and hell, as a never-ending torturous cycle of oddities. Grade: B+
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