Goodreads Ireland discussion

This is spoiler thread for Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman.

I look forward to having a more in-depth discussion with you all.

Declan. :)

So far this book is like being at my local pub at closing time listening to people talking nonsense and trying to make sense of it.

Finished this yesterday and I don't think I will be reading any more of mr o Brien. He just wasn't my cup of tea at all. The big reveal at the end didn't make up for reading 150 pages of nonsense.
I can see where comparisons could be made between this and Charlie and the chocolate factory or Alice in wonderland because it is sheer confusion to read.
I'm sure I'll get slated for this but I didn't enjoy his style of writing at all. Sentences like " so they stopped without proceeding any further" made me want to shout at the page-that's generally what stopped means!!
And I know the book was a paradox but the references to de selby started to annoy me early on to the point that by the end I just ignored them.
I'm sure this would be a good reference book for leaving cert students on writing styles etc but just for enjoyment purposes it wasn't for me.

I think having to listen to de selby's nonsensical theories for eternity is indeed hell. And the policemen all carried elements of his craziness.
It sounds like o Brien himself didn't think much of this book either when he says to his publisher "the only thing good about it is the plot".

No-one's going to slate you for that, Seraphina, but I have to admit, I love that line of the book.

I guess it all comes down to what you like as a reader. I'm glad I gave the Irish authors another try though

Flann is supposed to have said this:

"When you get to the end of this book you realize that my hero or main character (he's a heel and a killer) has been dead throughout the book and that all the queer ghastly things which have been happening to him are happening in a sort of hell which he earned for the killing ... It is made clear that this sort of thing goes on for ever ... When you are writing about the world of the dead – and the damned – where none of the rules and laws (not even the law of gravity) holds good, there is any amount of scope for back-chat and funny cracks."

He was ahead of his time when he wrote it in 1939/40, ahead of his time when it was posthumously published in the 60's, and he is still ahead of his time - that's real genius for you.

I agree with James Joyce - O'Brien was Ireland's funniest genius, and this was the funniest book I ever read.
Try 'The Poor Mouth', the translation from his 'An Béal Bocht' - but you would probably need to be half familiar with the Blasket and Donegal Irish language books that he rips off (affectionately, of course, because his satire came from a warm heart). He used his Myles na gCopaleen name for this one - and knew what he was talking about, having been brought up in an Irish speaking family in Tyrone.

No, nobody like him - not even Myles na gCopaleen, Brian O'Nolan, Brian Ó Nualláin, or the other couple of names he used (can't remember what they were now) - especially when you take into account he was in his prime in the 40's.

You could do worse than get one of the Cruiskeen Lawn collections - compiled from the column he wrote for the Irish Times over the years. If you think the 3rd Policeman is surreal, wait til you see some of the crazy stuff he got up to in there!

An interesting article on o Brien. Spoiler alert, it gives synopsis and extracts from his writings
http://www.themodernword.com/scriptor...

I don't think it was meant to be taken that de selby was the narrator. I think in a way like the bicycles become a part of you, the de selby references nearly took over the main story towards the end and maybe thats why you got that from the ending?

Ya I'm sure it had loads of hidden meanings and all that jazz but it made my head hurt to read. I didn't get any comedy from it except the de selby footnotes. Maybe it just went over my head, I dunno.

Lol or maybe it's us JL lol

You shouldn't have to be a genius to enjoy a book JL. There's plenty of books that are way beyond me like Ulysses etc. This group is def better for having you in it and I look forward to your input

Sometimes it is best just to read a book and either enjoy it or not, without needing to pin down exactly what it 'meant', but this book is widely acknowledged as being one of the great works of Irish literature over the last 100 years - and this is the Ireland Group, after all.
Does anyone think you need to be Irish to enjoy it? I don't think so myself but I'm interested in what others might think on that one.

I think it the whole de Selby aspect was added to enhance the surreality of the book. In some ways the de Selby passages were stranger. What sort of mind sits down and thinks up this kind of nonsene?

@Gerry. No, I don't think so. There are parts, like the bicycle references, which are quite Irish, but would seem all the more original for that.

When the group read 1Q84 I found it to be quintessentially Japanese but I really enjoyed it. It like felt I was seeing under the skin of Japan. I wonder if people get the same kind of impression with this in regards to Ireland?

Jamie Lynn wrote: "Flann O'Brien's quote in the book, is actually a summary of the book lol

“Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.”"

That's a great quote, Jamielynn. I love it.

I've stumbled across some good ones myself.

I have finished this book and ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would. It was quite random as someone else said. I thought kind of like the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. It has some random events that happen in it also. I really loved the way the author said described things.

“The road was narrow, white, old, hard and scarred with shadow. It ran away westwards in the mist of the early morning, running cunningly through the little hills and going to some trouble to visit tiny towns which were not, strictly speaking, on its way.”

And the way he used words for example the word penetrated for when he went back into the room.

“When I penetrated back to the day-room I encountered……..”

This was one of my favourite quotes. I found this a very interesting way to describe a sunset.

“The time of the day was now a dark time, the sun being about to vanish completely in the red west and withdraw all the light.”

I liked the way the sun was spoken of as if it was a person taking away the light.

The main character was an awful man I thought …… so selfish and unrepentant.

I liked the way the author told the story from the perspective that the main character didn't know he was dead. I thought this was very clever. I agree that this could be an interpretation of what hell could be like. But I have always thought hell would be a lot more grim… nothing beautiful to look at, at all.

I just really liked the language in the book.

The language is hugely important in his work. It's like wrapping a blanket around yourself when you're feeling cold. It really draws you in, I find.

It is definitely one of those books that when you read it's kinda like it's not on the same plane as the rest of the world. It's the right kind of different. It reminds me of Moby Dick, a sci-fi novel called the stars my destination and a fantasy series called the book of the short sun in that reading them you feel a kind of maniac, intense energy coming from the words that wraps you up. The crying of lot 49 would be another one

Seamus, if you link The Book of the Short Sun I'll add it to my to-read list. I've read, and really enjoyed all the other books mentioned above.

Declan wrote: "Seamus, if you link The Book of the Short Sun I'll add it to my to-read list. I've read, and really enjoyed all the other books mentioned above."

The series I read is the book of the new sun - Shadow and Claw and Sword and Citadel- Thinking about them in relation to 3rd policeman has reminded me I need to reread them. This (spoilery in parts) post does a good job of summing up what makes the series so unique http://sffmasterworks.blogspot.ie/201... .

Same site also has a good review for the star my destination as well.

The long sun and the short sun are also by the same guy - Gene Wolfe. I think they are all part of the same fictional universe

I've added Shadow and Claw, Seamus. I'll start there and see how I get on. If I take to his stuff I'll likely delve into more of it.

I read The Stars... a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It was a second-hand copy with the UK title, Tiger! Tiger!