I don't remember why I chose to read The Third Policeman. It has been on my reading list (which I keep in an amazon wish list) for a long while. I suspect I stumbled on recommendations from one or two trusted sources during my random internet ramblings. While it had points of interest, for me, it didn't pay off.
It is difficult to describe. Set in Ireland, the unnamed narrator is a naive man -- an amateur scholar of a fictional philosopher/academic named deSelby. He has written what he believes to be a authoritative account of deSelby's life and works (we are deluged with footnotes on deSelby throughout the book) but does not have the money to publish it. The narrator maintains a codependent relationship with a liar/con-man/thug named Divney who runs his failing farm for him. At Divney's suggestion, they plot to rob a local man who is thought to have a horde of cash. The robbery goes bad and the victim is murdered.
Then things get weird. The narrator encounters the ghost of the murdered man, crosses paths with a one-legged stranger, his conscience becomes an entity in itself who he calls Joe, he stumbles into a police station where they concern themselves of little else except bicycles: the theft of them, the nature of conscious connect with their owners, their variations and value. The cops also seem to have abilities to create paradoxical objects and events. In time, the narrator is sentenced to death by hanging, but is rescued. It is not too much of a spoiler to say that the hope that he gains after his rescue is dashed when it is revealed that he is actually in Hell and will be re-living the strange and terrible events of the book for eternity.
From a stylistic perspective a lot of the writing here is quite interesting. The early stretches of the book are written in as almost a recitation of facts of his early life. After that the prose in more engaging. There are some good humorous passages. The use of the fictional deSelby is almost Nabokovian. But overall the best way to describe this is that it is like the TV show Twin Peaks; it can grab your attention by challenging your expectations, but in the end you walk away only thinking "Well, that was different." Like the David Lynch creation, you won't get any real clarity of purpose. You will get flashes of brilliance, but mostly confusion, often of the sort where you get the sense that there may be more conventional meaning there and you are just missing it.
You're not. The point of these sorts of works is the experience of the work and not that you should get anything concrete out it. Should you read The Third Policeman? Probably not. It is thoroughly post-modern, mostly cryptic, and occasionally avant-garde. It is best for the dedicated reader looking for something out of the ordinary. Most folks are lucky to read four or five books a year and so don't have the time for something so far out on the edge of reason.
