The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Irish Existentialist

So, if Alice had fallen down the rabbit hole in Ireland rather than in England, the result could well be The Third Policemen. Or, more aptly, if Shem and Shaun had set out on the road West instead of East down the River Liffey, it could be the alternative Finnegans Wake. But on the third hand, it seems more likely that O’Brien is engaged in a massive send-up of Everything Irish, from its grammar to its destiny.

O’Brien’s protagonist, who has no name for most of the book, is on a quest, not a very honourable quest but one that serves to set up the story. Although he is the teller of the tale, it is really Ireland itself that is its subject, its peculiar history, its equally peculiar inhabitants, and especially the land itself which has its own peculiarities:

“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. It was possibly one of the oldest roads in the world. I found it hard to think of a time when there was no road there because the trees and the tall hills and the fine views of bogland had been arranged by wise hands for the pleasing picture they made when looked at from the road. Without a road to have them looked at from they would have a somewhat aimless if not a futile aspect.”

The thoughts and actions of Mr. No Name are dominated by a crackpot philosopher, de Selby, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the 18th century 'immaterialist' Irish philosopher, Bishop Berkeley. At least both figures treat life as more or less hallucinatory. This is a judgment O’Brien adopts wholeheartedly throughout the story: Ireland as a collective delusion. Of course, as with his protagonist, this country may not exist at all: “If you have no name you possess nothing and you do not exist and even your trousers are not on you although they look as if they were from where I am sitting.”

Entering into this hallucinatory state, Protagonist has found his Soul, that ‘other self’ with whom he can speak and derive wise counsel. The Soul, called Joe, is generally more rational and coherent than the others Protagonist meets on his journey, or indeed than the rube Protagonist himself. Nevertheless their conversations do not inhibit the frequent emergence of Walter Mitty-like fantasies among the many other questionable experiences. This is a clear confirmation of his conceptual presumptions: “Of all the many striking statements made by de Selby, I do not think that any of them can rival his assertion that ‘a journey is an hallucination’.”

The policeman of the title is one of a team of country constables who have a peculiar talent. They are able to see the colour of the wind, an apparently important ability that has much to do with the fate of new born infants. Other than their chromatic duties two of the three are concerned mainly with the theft and proper lighting of bicycles. One points spears and carves Russian boxes as a hobby; the other slurps his porridge from the bowl. The third has more useful interests. All are expert on the Atomic Theory which explains the progressive transformation of human beings into bicycles, and vice versa.*

Remarkably, O’Brien anticipates (inspires?) Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi idea of 3D printing of everything from machines to food 60 years in the future - bicycles, of course being the prototype. As the police sergeant explains, the world and everything in it consists of Omnium, a substance without any definite substance, but with a force:

“Omnium is the essential inherent interior essence which is hidden inside the root of the kernel of everything and it is always the same... It never changes. But it shows itself in a million ways and it always comes in waves... Some people call it God and there are other names for something that is identically resembling it and that thing is omnium also into the same bargain.”

Omnium exists in its natural form “lacking an essential property of all known objects,” namely dimension. But it can be used to stimulate any of the human senses. In short, Omnium is the equivalent of Bishop Berkeley's immaterial Idea.

Smoke and mirrors are appropriately two of O’Brien’s favourite tropes. Both obscure; both distort. He also revels in the negative questioning of those, like the devil, who prefer to give negative answers to every question. So, “Would you object to giving me a straight answer?” elicits the response “No”, which is in fact an agreement to speak plainly. One must be prepared at all times to obfuscate and to de-rail obfuscation. This is the Irish way.

There is no doubt that, as with Finnegans Wake and Alice in Wonderland, it would be possible to make a career of The Third Policeman by tracking down allusions to people, places, myths, and events in Irish history (as well as in modern nuclear physics).** The book, in a way, provokes such a study of the national character. Whether this would be a productive use of one’s time or not is another question. I’d have to say with definite ambiguity: ‘No.’

*One is tempted to think of the modern discussion of the AI/Human interface. O'Brien certainly must have been one of the first to consider living machines.
** I suspect, for example, that his pal, Divney, with whom he commits a rather horrific crime, is England (or perhaps merely the Northern Irish counties). The two live together for some time, more or less accidentally, but end up not trusting each other, although they sleep in the same bed.

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