Talk:The Third Policeman

Critical responses/interpretations
I mentioned briefly that the novel can be interpreted as a metafiction, though I didn't elaborate well on why this is so (the metafiction argument belongs to Keith Hopper, btw). I'm leaving this comment as a reminder to myself to work on it in the future. In general, it would be nice to see other critical responses or interpretations, since The Third Policeman is a fascinating pancake and a conundrum of great incontinence, a phenomenon of the first rarity. - Cobra libre 00:12, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm doubtful that metafiction is the right word... it is a vague term and I'm wondering what you mean. The novel certainly is a robust fiction, a most tantilizing encumbrance of the cerebelum. However, O'Brien isn't letting the reader in on any fictional devices at all. The author remains in the world of the novel entirely, it is a great pancake of a metaphor, an allegory, but it isn't really metafiction in the traditional sense, in that it doesn't let the reader in on its devices, it just uses the devices. Therefore, it's fiction... and damn fine fiction at that. Aleakypen (talk) 20:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The article is not a place for editors to argue that the novel is or isn't 'metafiction', as that would violate WP: Original Research. Instead we should be collating critical interpretations of the novel and summarising them here.  Right now this article needs a lot of work; it doesn't give any sources and the reference section is very poor.  The article is rated as mid-importance because it's a significant novel, and at the moment the article is not living up to the importance of the subject.  The bones are there, however, so let's start finding citations for the assertions that we are making. I have copies of the Hopper book and also Anne Clissman's 1970s study of O'Brien, and somewhere I have a collection of essays on him.  I will make a start on a 'critical interpretations' section. Lexo (talk) 11:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Lost
Apparently a lot of people have been turned on to The Third Policeman by Lost. For me, it was the other way around. When I heard that one of my favourite books played a part in the TV series, I decided to check it out. Anyway, this forum post has a lot of information about the connections between the two. Cnwb 07:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Reference in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

 * Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's comic The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen mentions the police barracks from The Third Policeman as an example of a paranormal phenomenon in Ireland.

Does anybody have a more specific reference for this? I can't say I remember it from my reading of the comic. --Ryano 11:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

TLS
The original review in the Times Literary Supplement was by Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange (and others).


 * Got a source for that? Please sign posts, btw. Lexo (talk) 12:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have evidence to the contrary (finally). According to the extensive bibliography in Clune and Hurson's Conjuring Complexities, Burgess's review of the book was in the Observer, not the TLS. cf. Clune & Hurson, p.222 Lexo (talk) 23:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Major rewrite
The more I look at this article, the more it seems to me to need a major rewrite. It is full of unsubstantiated claims, or at any rate claims that the contributors could be bothered to provide sources for. It's reassuring that those who have been working on it are fans of the book, because presumably that means that they want the article to be good, but so far I've seen little evidence of contributors having any knowledge about the guidelines to good article writing. There are multiple things wrong at the moment and I invite would-be contributors to have a look at the guidelines before they start using the article to expound their personal interpretations of the book. It's okay to have your own idea of what it's about and who influenced it, but this is supposed to be a place where existing research is put together, not a place for your own critical musings. In the meantime, I am going to keep going through the article providing citations where possible and throwing out unsubstantiated claims where I can't find a source for them. I leave it to other people to submit the article for rating, as I can never be bothered to do that. Lexo (talk) 12:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've given the article a fairly serious overhaul and cut the most glaring bits of original research. More citations are needed on what's there, and more information is required about how the book is viewed.  In particular, the Lost association, which is one of the reasons the book is currently so famous, needs to be properly sourced by somebody.  Here's a source: .  The popular culture section is shoddy and such things are anyway disapproved of by wikipedia.  I will think about how some of it can be incorporated into the body of the article, but most of it will have to go, I'm afraid. Lexo (talk) 14:03, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I did another overhaul, largely rewriting the plot summary (thanks to whoever wrote the earlier version, made the job a lot easier) and providing citations to the text of the novel. I forgot to log on before I did it, though, which is why it was done anonymously.  Right now I think the article needs more about the background and history of the book, and more space given to existing critical interpretations of it.  I concede that much of the existing literature on O'Brien isn't of very high quality.  The Cronin biog in particular is fairly amateurish. Nevertheless, it's all we have.  One potentially useful thing might be to look up adaptations of the book into other media.  I know of at least one dramatic adaptation of it. Lexo (talk) 12:13, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I wrote a seminar paper on 'The Third Policeman' and would like to contribute some of its chapters dealing with shape, structures, narrative techniques, themes (TTP as a satire of science and scholarship, experiments with time and space and TTPs anti-empiricist approach) and characters of the novel. Although Keith Hopper is quoted, I do not agree with his major assumptions that TTP is a postmodern/ist novel, or, that Flann O'Brien was a postmodern/ist writer. TTP and the topics it deals with are too wide a subject as to identify it as 'postmodern', especially if you take O'Briens ideological background into account. Does anybody fancy to discuss these issues? Eismännchen (talk) 11:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Quotes
Is it necessary for the article to contain so many quotes? I haven't seen many other articles with such a dense number of quotes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.56.44 (talk) 10:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The ones in place today strike me as interesting and helpful. --Hors-la-loi (talk) 15:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Appearance by De Selby in Robert Anton Wilson's "The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles Part II: The Widow's Son"
Didn't this article at one point contain a reference to Wilson's use of De Selby and O'Brien's ideas in general in his work? Why was it removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.6.3 (talk) 18:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"
Question: What information do we have on O'Nolan's basis for entitling this novel?

Here is a passage from Hemingway's famous short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro that may provide a clue. It was published in Esquire magazine four years before O'Nolan completed The Third Policeman:

Because, just as death had come and rested its head on the foot of his cot and he smell its breath.

"Never believe any of that about a scythe and a skull", he told her; "It can be two bicycle policemen as easily, or be a bird".

Any clues as to whether this influenced O'Nolan's title? Perhaps a tribute to Hemingway? Paula — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mysweetoldetc. (talk • contribs) 19:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Omnium time
Disappointed to see an edit changing the date of the writing of this book from "between 1939 and 1940" to "1939 and 1940". Sarah777 (talk) 19:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

News from Nepal
I wonder if Pelevin's story News from Nepal was written with knowledge of this work (The Third Policeman). It carries a similar theme of repeated after-death re-living of prior experience. Cheers, ---CopperKettle (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2023 (UTC)