The less you know about The Third Policeman, the more enjoyable your first time will be. To be plain, I think that you should read the book too, gentlest reader, and if you are fortunate enough to possess innocence of its strange virtues, all the better. I read the novel in an ideal state, a kind of Platonic purity of appropriate bewilderment, at turns gaping and guffawing at O’Brien’s sublime impositions on plot, imagery, thought, language. I’m also thankful that I knew pretty much nothing about the book going in I’m thankful that I skipped over Denis Donoghue’s introduction (which has the gall to spoil the novel’s end) I’m thankful that I resisted looking up information on de Selby, a philosopher I had never heard the name of before The Third Policeman.

I am ashamed that I came so late to its cult (how the novel escaped my formative teens and twenties escapes me), but also thankful that I trusted the readers of this blog who kindly suggested I read it. 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.Here’s the short review: Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman is a dark, comic masterpiece-witty, bizarre, and buzzing with surreal transformations that push the limits of language. 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 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.

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien