BOOKHOUSE BOYS Episode 8: The Third Policeman Conclusion

[Farrell]

From the UK Telegraph, dated 26th of October, 2007:

A man has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle...depute fiscal Gail Davidson described how he had been found by the hostel workers:

"They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply. They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down. The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex."

He is not the first man to be convicted of a sexual offense involving an inanimate object, however. Karl Watkins, an electrician, was jailed for having sex with pavements in Redditch, Worcs, in 1993.

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The next book has been selected and the reading schedule is up: Ragtime.  We hope you'll join us.  It's pretty damn depraved so far...

[Matt H.O.W.L.]

And we're off! I'm eager to hear people's thoughts on the conclusion. 

[Jeppe]

Solid episode guys! just finished this on my morning commute. I'm gonna post thoughts on the book when I'm in front of my computer and have a little time, but in general I liked the book and agree with much of what you guys said 


Oh, also, it's "Ye-peh" 

[Dave A]

Oh, also, it's "Ye-peh" 

 

[Matt H.O.W.L.]

Solid episode guys! just finished this on my morning commute. I'm gonna post thoughts on the book when I'm in front of my computer and have a little time, but in general I liked the book and agree with much of what you guys said 


Oh, also, it's "Ye-peh" 

Our minds are like steel traps with the bloody foot of etymology inside of them. It shall not be forgotten, good sir!

P.S. Looking forward to yr thoughts. WBS.

m

[Jeppe]

So, as I mentioned before I did generally like the book. At times I found it frustrating, and about halfway through it I realized that my initial expectations were not going to be met, but it was enjoyable and well-written nonetheless. Here are some of my impressions.

• I found the surrealism and non sequitur dialogue both effective and at times quite amusing. Some of it felt like red herrings, while other parts were clearly important for the overall narrative. Many themes felt intentionally abandoned later on, and this contributed quite a bit to the surreal feel of the book and the effect that I think Jason described in the episode, of never fully understanding many parts of the story.
• After reading the first third of the novel, I said somewhere that I thought it was more a work of proto-postmodernism than modernism, but this turned out not to be the case. The interplay between de Selby's philosophy and the narrator's history seemed to open up for an exploration of the relationship between plot, character, reader, and author, but I didn't feel like this was something that figured significantly in the book at all. The story dealt heavily with reality and perception, but not so much in a meta-fictional sense. While the narrator was often on the verge of discovering the true nature of his own hellish existence, his function as a fictional person in a fictional narrative never seemed to be approached within the text.
• In part related to the last point, I really enjoyed the discussions of de Selby's crazy philosophy, but the intent of this level of the narrative never became entirely clear to me. I'm not sure that I agree with the B Boys' interpretation of de Selby and the footnotes as a satirical comment on academia, and if it is, then I fail to see it's relation to the rest of the novel. Maybe my lack of contextual knowledge of O'Nolan and contemporary Irish fiction makes me miss something here?
• The novel itself was very well-written and structured. I agree that the length was just right, and the ending was a satisfying one. It did not have the slightly deranged experimental feel that some other absurd or surreal mid-20th century works have, but felt like a very tightly plotted and almost 'formally' playful book. To put it in another way, this was much more in the vien of Samuel Beckett than of William S. Burroughs, if that makes sense.

I just read on the book's Wikipedia page that Keith Hopper apparently disagrees completely with me on most of these points, in particular the modernist vs postmodernist discussion, and I would love to read his essay on O'Nolan. Anyone had a chance to look at it? It's called Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist.


Once again, thanks for the podcast and the excellent choice of book. I've really enjoyed following you guys along, and I almost certainly wouldn't have picked up The Third Policeman without you!

[Farrell]

• In part related to the last point, I really enjoyed the discussions of de Selby's crazy philosophy, but the intent of this level of the narrative never became entirely clear to me. I'm not sure that I agree with the B Boys' interpretation of de Selby and the footnotes as a satirical comment on academia, and if it is, then I fail to see it's relation to the rest of the novel. Maybe my lack of contextual knowledge of O'Nolan and contemporary Irish fiction makes me miss something here?

For my part, that was an attempt at a working theory, but it didn't pay off in any discernible way.  For all of our talk about De Selby, I don't think any of us ever came to grips (at least not on the podcast) with his relationship to the narrator and the narrator's fate.  I'm not even sure if any of De Selby's specific theories were important, or whether the importance lay solely in the narrator's devotion to De Selbian thought, and to pursuit of those ideas (and his desire to join the dubious ranks of De Garbandier and company as a commentator) as a motivation for his crime.

Great to hear your thoughts on the book, Jeppe, and thanks very much for listening!

[Dave A]

The stuff with de Selby felt in a lot of ways like O'Brien's shaggy dog joke to both the reader and the narrator. We get told up front that the narrator commits the murder which damns him in order to print this index of de Selby works and criticism, but everything we learn about de Selby from that point lets us know how unworthy of such devotion the philosopher is. Essentially, the narrator damns himself in order to publish a comprehensive study of a crackpot, ha ha. That's what I took away from it, anyway.

That's a lot of what I meant when I talked about not paying at lot of attention to de Selby's individual theories in the final chapters. I still read them and was entertained by their silliness, but I completely stopped trying to read anything into them... I think we can see that, in a lot of ways, de Selby's lunatic ramblings inform the fractured landscape of the particular Hell in which the narrator finds himself, but I don't know that we're supposed to take much more away from it than that. Part of me feels like O'Brien's chuckling wherever he is now over the thought of people asking one another with a straight face, "So what do you think it means that de Selby thinks the world is a sausage?"

[Matt H.O.W.L.]

"Life is sausage, bikes, sex, and death." - Plato

[Matt H.O.W.L.]

I just read on the book's Wikipedia page that Keith Hopper apparently disagrees completely with me on most of these points, in particular the modernist vs postmodernist discussion, and I would love to read his essay on O'Nolan. Anyone had a chance to look at it? It's called Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist.

I kept meaning to post this but forgot until now:
I was thrilled to see that O'Nolan has scholars who study his work. The echo of de Selbyian commentary would, no doubt, have amused him. 

References

    * Clissman, Anne (1975). Flann O'Brien: A critical introduction to his writings. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. ISBN 0064912159. OCLC 2002815.
    * Hopper, Keith (1995). Flann O'Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist. Cork: Cork University Press. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-85918-04206[verification needed]|1-85918-04206[verification needed]]]. OCLC 33189239.
    * Kenner, Hugh (1997). "The Fourth Policeman". In Clune, Anne; Hurson, Tess. Conjuring Complexities: Essays on Flann O'Brien. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies. pp. 61–71. ISBN 0853896755. OCLC 37709678