Acclaimed as literary novels, they are steeped in crime – but is it kosher to call them Irish crime fiction novels? YOU (via the comment box, natch) decide! This week: Flann O’Brien’s THE THIRD POLICEMAN.A masterpiece of black humour from the renowned comic and acclaimed author of AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS – Flann O’Brien. A thriller, a hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender, brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle, and a chilling fable of unending guilt, THE THIRD POLICEMAN is comparable only to ALICE IN WONDERLAND as an allegory of the absurd. Distinguished by endless comic invention and its delicate balancing of logic and fantasy, THE THIRD POLICEMAN is unique in the English language. – Amazon UK
Flann O’Brien’s most popular and surrealistic novel concerns an imaginary but hellish village police force and a local murder. Weird, satirical, and very funny, its popularity has suddenly increased with the mention of the novel in the TV film Lost. Here it comes to life in a new unabridged recording. “Even with ULYSSES and FINNEGANS WAKE behind him, James Joyce might have been envious,” wrote one critic about the work of Flann O’Brien. – Amazon UK (audio CD)
I don't think I consider this a crime novel. It is perhaps my favourite book and though I've read it perhaps ten times, I rarely recall the crime or elements thereof when thinking about the book. It just isn't central enough to make it a crime novel. There is the ensuing guilt and fear of detection but somehow it pales before the overwhelming adventure genre, the exploration of strange lands and thoughts.
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