“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Monday, March 24, 2008

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)

1 comment:

Paul said...

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.