Down These Green Streets: Adrian McKinty on Flann O’Brien

As all Three Regular Readers will be aware, DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21st CENTURY will be published later this month by Liberties Press, with yours truly responsible, in my role as editor, for all gaffes therein. Inspired by Stuart Neville’s big-up of Gene Kerrigan’s latest novel during the week, I thought it might be a nice idea to ask some of the GREEN STREETS contributors to nominate their favourite Irish crime novel. First up, Adrian McKinty on Flann O’Brien’s comic masterpiece, THE THIRD POLICEMAN:

“Like Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde and Seamus Heaney, Flann O’Brien spent his formative years in the bleak, rainy moorland of western Ulster. Someday a Ph.D. student will write a thesis explaining how this dour, sodden, landscape helped produce four of Ireland’s best and wittiest writers but the mystery need not detain us - anyone who has ever tried to coax directions out of a County Tyrone farmer will understand why west Ulster humour is necessarily dark, laconic, labyrinthine and filled with irony.
  “Beckett and Wilde were at the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen but O’Brien, like Heaney, was of humbler stock, born Brian O’Nolan in Omagh, in 1911. After education at parochial school Brian moved to Dublin, joined the Irish Civil Service and began writing. His first book was the precocious and brilliant AT-SWIM-TWO-BIRDS, a surrealistic epic of Irish country life, published in 1939. Unfortunately the world had other things on its mind in 1939 and AT-SWIM-TWO-BIRDS died the death of most debut novels.
  “Still Flann stuck it, producing several more books including THE HARD LIFE and THE DALKEY ARCHIVE. By the late 1960’s AT-SWIM-TWO-BIRDS had been rediscovered as a classic and O’Brien reputation was solidified after the posthumous publication of THE THIRD POLICEMAN in 1967.
  “The plot of THE THIRD POLICEMAN is not easy to summarize, as it’s not only the most comic but also the most surrealistic Irish crime novel ever written. The one-legged unnamed hero (or anti-hero) of the story has murdered a man for the contents of a black box. The black box may contain money or a magic talisman or his soul or the key out of purgatory. The hero is being investigated by rural Irish policemen who are obsessed by bicycles and he in turn is obsessed by the ramblings of an insane college professor and the mysterious Third Policeman, who may be Satan or an angel or God himself. I appreciate that this doesn’t sound promising but the books is saved from becoming a pretentious period piece by its humour. THE THIRD POLICEMAN is very, very funny.
  “Admirers of THE THIRD POLICEMAN are many and it is not a stretch to suggest that Flann O’Brien is a Celtic Kafka or an Irish Borges. Predicting stuff is a mug’s game but I’d give Grand National odds that when Hannibal Lecter and even (dare I say it) Harry Potter are forgotten in the mists of time, people will still be reading THE THIRD POLICEMAN, not for some ‘Important Books’ college course, but rather for the sheer, unbridled joy of spending a while in the company of a truly weird comic genius.” - Adrian McKinty

  Adrian McKinty’s FALLING GLASS is published by Serpent’s Tail.

The Not-So-Secret Policeman’s Ball

The facts, ma’am, just the facts. Quoth the Blue Raincoat blurb elves:

Where on earth would one find a group of village policemen obsessed with bicycles even going so far as to steal the things themselves to counteract the effects of an atomic theory which holds that through a sort of molecular transfer the owners of bicycles become bicycles themselves and vice versa?
  I have no idea.
  Where would you find a character that has a wooden leg, cannot remember his own name, and is party to a murder and devoted to the musings of an eccentric philosopher named De Selby who believes that the earth is not round but shaped like a sausage?
  Once again, I am at a loss.
  Moreover, in addition and while we are at it. How many policemen do you know who have a device which works by storing loud noises such as shouting and hammering, and later converting them into light when needed?
  I know of no such cohort.
  Would you like to make their acquaintance?
  Indeed I would.
  Blue Raincoat Theatre Company will be staging their production of Flann O’Brien’s THE THIRD POLICEMAN at venues nationwide during May. You will be introduced to a host of characters and find yourself in balls of laughter.
  THE THIRD POLICEMAN by Flann O’Brien. What’s that?
  It is a murder mystery, an hilarious comic satire, a fable of eternal grief, the story of romantic love between a man and his bicycle and a surreal vision of eternity with a cast that includes policemen, a man, his soul, a one-legged gallows maker and bicycles. Described variously as a “ Fantastic production” and a “ heady delight”, Jocelyn Clarke’s adaptation of the famous novel by Flann O’Brien begins a tour of the country on May 3rd.
  Sounds fantastic.
  It is. Visit www.blueraincoat.com for more details.

Yes, yes – but is it any good? “Marvellous … and it looked gorgeous,” voted the Irish Times Critics Choice in 2007. “A fantastic production, truly impressive,” reckons The Sunday Independent. “Striking, funny, tragic, entertaining …” says the Irish Times. So there you have it: THE THIRD POLICEMAN. Blue Raincoat. ’Nuff said.

The Jury Remains Out: THE THIRD POLICEMAN

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)

Brought To Book # 43: Adrian McKinty on The Third Policeman

Like Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde and Seamus Heaney, Flann O’Brien spent his formative years in the bleak, rainy moorland of western Ulster. Someday a Ph.D. student will write a thesis explaining how this dour, sodden, landscape helped produce four of Ireland’s best and wittiest writers, but the mystery need not detain us - anyone who has ever tried to coax directions out of a County Tyrone farmer will understand why west Ulster humour is necessarily dark, laconic, labyrinthine and filled with irony. Beckett and Wilde were at the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen but O’Brien, like Heaney, was of humbler stock, born Brian O’Nolan in Omagh, in 1911. After education at parochial school Brian O’Nolan moved to Dublin, joined the Irish Civil Service and began writing, adopting not one but two pseudonyms: Flann O’Brien for his novels and Myles na Gopaleen for his column in the Irish Times. His first book was the precocious and brilliant At Swim Two Birds, a surrealistic epic of Irish country life, published in 1939. Unfortunately the world had other things on its mind in 1939 and At Swim Two Birds died the death of most debut novels. Still Flann stuck it, producing several more books including The Hard Life and The Dalkey Archive. Unlike his contemporary Samuel Beckett Flann O’Brien was not recognized as a great writer in his lifetime, either by the Nobel Prize Committee or by anybody else. However by the late 1960's At Swim Two Birds had been rediscovered as a classic and the clamour for Flann O’Brien increased after the posthumous publication of The Third Policeman in 1967. The plot of The Third Policeman is not easy to summarize, as it’s not only the most comic but also the most surrealistic Irish crime novel ever written. The one-legged unnamed hero (or anti-hero) of the story has murdered a man for the contents of a black box. The black box may contain money or a magic talisman or his soul or the key out of purgatory. The hero is being investigated by rural Irish policemen who are obsessed by bicycles and he in turn is obsessed by the ramblings of an insane college professor and the mysterious Third Policeman, who may be Satan or an Angel or God himself. I know this doesn’t sound promising but you had to be there and you should be there - the book gets odder as it goes along and funnier too. Admirers of The Third Policeman are many. It is not a stretch to suggest that Flann O’Brien is a Celtic Kafka or an Irish Borges and, as viewers of Lost have discovered, Flann O’Brien’s influence and reputation has done nothing but grow over the years. Predicting stuff is a mug’s game but I’d give Grand National odds then when The Da Vinci Code and Hannibal Lecter and even (dare I say it) Harry Potter are forgotten in the mists of time, people will still be reading The Third Policeman not for some ‘Important Books’ college course, but rather for the sheer, unbridled joy of spending a while in the company of a truly weird comic genius.- Adrian McKinty

Adrian McKinty's The Bloomsday Dead is available in all good bookshops