The Third Policeman - Softcover

O'Brien, Flann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452259126 ISBN 13: 9780452259126

Publisher: Penguin, 1991

Synopsis

This Flann O'Brien's most popular and surrealistic novel concerns an imaginary, hellish village police force and a local murder. Weird, satirical, and very funny, it is read by Irish master reader Jim Norton. This more compact version retains all the delightfully wacky and humorous moments.

About this title

Review:

"His writing is invariably compared to those other Irish greats, Joyce and Beckett, but for me he is infinitely more accessible and much funnier." (Sue Arnold, The Guardian)"What fun not to know which direction any sentence will take." --Christina Hardyment, The Times

The book begins by detailing an odd relationship between two men. A flashback shows something is amiss, and the scene unfolds to a horrible crime. The story suddenly falls into a fantastical, almost stream-of-consciousness, tale of time-travel, with one of the men journeying with police officers in an investigation of a missing bicycle. This complicated novel s saving grace is an unexpected ending, and Jim Norton's narration. He employs varying tones and pitches, and one of the officers' voices is a wonderful Indian-British accent with a friendly, commanding authority. This story will irk some listeners; others will be intrigued. (At the end, listeners learn why the shift to the fantastical happens so fast.) There s little character development, but listeners won't mind as Norton does a good job as guide. --AudioFile

From the Back Cover:

The Third Policeman is Flann O'Brien's 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0452259126
• ISBN 13: 9780452259126
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208