Rating: 
Summary: So good it makes me giggle
Review: First, a few quibbles. Strictly speaking, this book is not "surrealist," as a few reviewers aver. Nor is it a mystery, nor science fiction, probably. The closest thing to it I have read is Stanislaw Lem, though the feeling is closer to Swift. O'Brien spins an incredibly imaginative, voluble, funny, inventive yarn. Our nameless protagonist meets policemen, visits eternity, and develops a relationship with a bicycle. His soul, Joe, enjoys proclaiming that he (the protagonist) is "Signor Bari, the eminent one-legged tenor!" The protagonist is a literally amoral person. In other words, he is not troubled by any dilemmas other than how best to preserve his own hide (and possibly to publish his work on bogus savant de Selby.) His role in this book is not to simulate a real person, in other words. Like Gulliver, he observes O'Brien's world and in reacting to that world, acts as a proxy for the reader. But more on that below. Having committed a self-serving though impulsive murder, he begins to meet odd people and have odd conversations. He meets a curiously circumlocutory policeman, and after a mind-bending conversation, he begins to talk in similarly loopy style, in a hilarious attempt to fit in: "Those chests... are so like one another that I do not believe they are there at all because that is a simpler thing to believe than the contrary." O'Brien displays amazing virtuosity with the English language, especially considering it is his second language (his first is Irish.) And yet his characters talk in a (to my untravelled ear) a peculiarly, and hilariously, Irish way: "Only myself has the secret of the thing and the intimate way of it, the confidential knack of circumventing it." But there are also passages of limpid beauty But what is he making fun of? Self-obsessed scholars and their exegetists, undoubtedly. But there are also themes of punishment and guilt, both felt and adjudicated. After a few hours of consideration, I might hazard that O'Brien is making fun of, and cherishing, greed, selfishness and the desperate desire to avoid justice. When visiting eternity the protagonist discovers he can have literally anything, so he requests and receives bricks of gold, jewels, small but frightful weapons, etc.; he generally displays venality and defensiveness. When it turns out he cannot bring any of it with him, he bursts into tears. When a policeman sympathetically offers him a piece of candy, he cries even harder. So although the protagonist is amoral, the book is basically a morality play. In fact it turns out that the entire book is a long description of the hapless protagonist's comeuppance. O'Brien's Catholic upbringing shows through, I suppose. Humanity's lot is justly a poor one, yet one cannot blame them for longing for better. Perhaps it is just best to have a sad whiskey.
Rating:
Summary: The Third Policeman is one "hell" of a ride!
Review: Flann O'Brien's "The Third Policeman" is surely one of the strangest, most delightful excursions into the fantastical ever written. It's a progressively weirder and more delightful tale of a mad journey into the land of the Irish "hell" police by a man who doesn't have the slightest idea he's already dead. Think "Kafka" with a great sense of humor. Like Lewis Carroll, O'Brein loves conundrums: the exquisitely crafted boxes nestled within smaller boxes, until they are invisiblely minute; the needle so sharp it has already passed through your hand when you first begin to feel it. Another quirk: the book is profusely footnoted with the oddest footnotes you'll ever read
Rating:
Summary: DON'T READ THE INTRODUCTION!
Review: For some bizzare reason the ending of this wonderful book is given away in the introduction and the publisher's note at the end. If the publisher objects to a story being told sequentially, why didn't he or she just print the book in reverse or random order? I first read this book 25 years ago and I rebought it and just enjoyed rereading it. It's one of the best!
Rating:
Summary: unmissable
Review: i can scarcely believe that anyone could find this book unfunny, or its ending predictable. the footnotes regarding de selby had me laughing out loud. as an example, the 'scientist' describes his experiment of standing between two parallel mirrors, thereby creating an infinite number of reflections. at one point, he assures us, he catches a glimpse of himself as a small child. (i assure you obrien tells it better). do not die without reading this book. it is, in more ways than one, essential.
Rating:
Summary: YOU ARE VERY LUCKY FINDING THIS BOOK
Review: I don't want to say anything about the story. It is best experienced by yourself. However I must urge you to read this book. You will love it if you like really good literature.
OK so what can I say without giving anything away....
I laughed a lot reading this book...and that says a lot since I'm kind of a bore.
It is very genuine story. Well-built and with a lot of different levels. It is intellectual litterature with humour.
This is one of those books were you can buy the best edition from the start. You will definately want to have it for a long time.
I remember reading that Flann O'Brien would probably have been a greater name if he had not been standing in the shadow of Joyce at the time.
Rating:
Summary: A modern classic - and funny as well!
Review: I had heard about this book in different circles, often in arty conversations, and on TV litarary discussions. Often called a dificult book to have written, and to pidgeon-hole, having a genre of its own. I can honnestly say that it is the best novel I've ever read. I remember nearly drowning in my bath tub when I read the passage where the hero, insults his soul (Joe) and joe threatends to leave him...
Rating:
Summary: Céad míle howyas
Review: I seen it. And I knuwn it well.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ FOR NON BELIEVERS OF HUMOR IN HADES
Review: I WASN'T SURE ABOUT WHAT I WAS READING UNTIL I GOT A WAYS INTO THE PAPERBACK VERSION. A BOOK YOU WON'T WANT TO PUT DOWN. I LOVE TO READ AND THIS IS A [FIRST] FOR ME TO HAVE EVER READ ANYTHING LIKE THIS. I LOVED IT!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written yet confusing
Review: I'm not sure what to make of this book. It's like Dante's Inferno meets Alice In Wonderland. It is exceptionally well written and imaginative, but I frequently had trouble getting through it. After a while the footnotes (making reference to a fictional philosopher with outrageous theories) get old and you REALLY have to be in a mood to read them, because you have to pay attention to understand and otherwise they will lose you. And, unfortunately, the ending is predictable. But on the whole it is an interesting reading experience, to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: A man of genius
Review: Let's face it, Flann O'Brien was a genius. He even managed to emerge from the mire that is Strabane, no mean feet (sic). The Third Policeman is a testament to the stupidity of publishers. I think that both the tragedy of his life and his eventual death were brought about by its rejection. Still, as they say, its a hard life.
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