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The Third Policeman |  | Author: Flann O'Brien
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy Used: $2.95
as of 9/10/2010 19:04 CDT details
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Seller: Blue Cloud Books
Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 57266
Media: Paperback
Edition: Second printing
Pages: 200
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 156478214X
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9781564782144
ASIN: 156478214X
Publication Date: March 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.
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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 92
Odd, enjoyable, and a must for LOST fans July 16, 2010
J Collins
I've seen other reviews that are referring to this as a comedy. I really don't see that, more that it's just odd, and in some cases just downright peculiar. The narrative style does get a bit rambling in places, but fits within the context of the book.
I picked up this copy as it was one of the books that were shown within LOST and I wanted some further insight as to why it was there. For those LOST fans, it is a must read both for how it relates to the story, and just because you can gain perspective on Desmond Hume, who was the one who introduced it to us within the story. Only at the very end, as with LOST, do you realize just what is going on and why, though I enjoyed the ending of this book much more than the finale of LOST.
my head hurts June 3, 2010
Jessica Confessore (Denver, CO)
Reading this book is like what LOST would be if written by Thomas Pynchon. Totally confusing and random, I see where the writers got some of the Key scenes in seasons 3, 5 and 6. But the bicycles...man...my head hurts.
 The best presentation by Jim Norton I have yet heard, and the best book for him too! March 28, 2010
C. Scanlon (among us humans)
I frequently find Mr. Norton's hyperventilated histrionics inappropriate in other works. For instance, I prefer the rather carefully measured Ulysses to his Ulysses (Naxos AudioBooks), and of course the wonderful and rarely now head Richard Setlock's readings of Dubliner's, including The Dead (Commuter's Library) to Mr. Norton's Dubliners, Pt. 2.
This is consistent throughout his efforts, until I heard this, a highpoint of Irish Bull, for which he is perfectly prudent.
The story of course is marvelous, a profound exploration of the afterlife (no spoiler here) in a highly comical manner, with humorous send-ups of everyone from academics to amputees, to of course the police and official proceedings, including executing the most handy while innocent candidate, with an interesting presentation of the effects of our sins and other larcenies, and our guilty convulsions when death at last comes knocking at our door.
Flann O'Brien is the pen name for an Irish civil servant who could not therefore publish under his own name but used several others and wrote prolifically, especially in Irish in which he produced some of the finest and best read works. Please, for the love of Mike, read Powers' translation of his The Poor Mouth : A Bad Story about the Hard Life, as humorous as this, with a similar faux-academic tone which survives the translation as here it survives Jim's reading.
Please get this for someone you really love, and also for yourself, whom you may come to love for having done so as you will love it. It is very well done. You might even attempt a quiet reading of the equally fantastic but dauntingly less accessible At Swim-Two-Birds (John F. Byrne Irish Literature Series). The Complete Novels (Everyman's Library) are also conveniently gathered.
 Tough to Rate October 3, 2009
R. Brenner (New Jersey)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'll start by saying that the reason I picked up this book is because it was featured on LOST. Having rewatched the first five seasons, I can say that if I had read this back at the start of Season 2, it would have had much more to offer in the way of information pertaining to the true nature of the show. Going into Season 6, it doesn't give you much to speculate about, but it does give you a glimpse at some of the source material that inspired those who wrote the show. Some of the parallels between this novel and LOST are quite apparent.
Now, onto the book itself... As others have said, the foreword spoils the ending, as does the Publisher's Note at the end, so don't read those until you've finished the story. I won't go into much plot summary, and I'll try to focus my review on how I felt about the book and it's various characteristics. The main character is obsessed with a faux-genius by the name of de Selby, and throughout the novel there are various footnotes that represent areas where the narrator tells us about de Selby's various zany exploits and why they were actually brilliant. At first, they're somewhat interesting, and really contribute a lot to the feel of the novel, but by the end I wound up dreading them. Other people say they are riotously funny; I did not agree. It gets to a point where some of the "footnotes" span the entire page (sometimes multiple pages), but the message is never any different. I was always very disappointed when I saw that there was a footnote (or three) ahead. They also break up the tempo of the novel if read sequentially, but I forced myself to do it. De Selby was stupid and the narrator thinks he was a genius; we get it.
I never once laughed out loud while reading this book. There were occasions where I quietly chuckled to myself, but it's not nearly as funny as people make it out to be. Maybe absurdist/surrealist humor just isn't my thing.
Finally, I'll touch on the topic of the ending. It's fairly predictable, but it's also satisfying. By that point in the novel, if it ended any other way I would have been very disappointed. Unfortunately, a secondary effect of this ending is that it makes me feel as if everything I read was for nothing. I don't want to delve into the realm of spoilers, but I will say that in the end, the narrator isn't the only one who gets duped.
Many people will probably think I just "didn't get it." I'm fairly confident I did. O'Brien touches on a lot of themes in this book, and it's not unlike something I would expect to be assigned in High School (I really wouldn't have minded this book were it assigned to me). The philosophical questions raised are of the most profound, but there are also issues of morality and criminal justice. There's also a good amount of pseudo-science, which I found to be wholly uninteresting.
It's a book I'm happy to say I've read, but I'm rating it 3/5 based on entertainment value. It was sometimes hard to pick up, but it wasn't all bad. There were enough interesting parts to get me over the hump. In the end, I'm glad I read it.
Would have made a better short story. September 26, 2009
NbleSavage (Winston Salem, NC)
Short read at 200 pages, and the Irish 'voice' was amusing for the first 50 or so but overall the investment was simply not worth the payoff. Would have been a better short story / metaphorical play on one man's version of 'Hell'. As a 200 page novel, for me, it grew stale in its comedic attempts and the pacing grew slow. Found myself skimming the last 20 pages wanting to get to the payoff (which was fairly predictable - although I'm sure more impactful at the time this book was released).
Would have been better 30 years ago, still not a bad ride in the country.
Peace.
- Savage
Showing reviews 1-5 of 92
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