The Third Policeman – Flann O'Brien

29th April 2010

Group notes, but heavily biased towards Rob's view!

Almost unanimity last week (including comments from absent friends), but sadly in the negative direction as The Third Policeman failed to be arresting for this particular group of readers. Mark T. went so far as to say he hated what was the worst book yet chosen. As a result, there was remarkably little discussion about the book to report here. I was the exception to this damning view and, whilst not thinking it was a great or even hugely enjoyable piece of literature, nonetheless felt it had several positive factors in its favour. As I was largely alone in this (though with some lukewarm support from Steve) my apologies for this note being heavily biased to my comments as, otherwise there would be little to report other than people saying how they disliked it both in terms of writing style, plot (or lack of) and how it failed to engage the reader. So in order to reflect that there was some debate I'll just record that in my opinion:

The writing style was highly clever in the way it used words in unusual (and often cumbersome) ways that said things in a structure that completely fitted in with the 'unreal' nature of the book itself

The way his brain worked and generated bizarre yet fascinating ideas was both engaging and thought provoking e.g. there being only two directions on the globe not four (difficult to argue with) and the transfer of life properties through friction on (for example) the bike saddle

The humour and style was way ahead of its time and you could see clear elements of what later appeared in the Goons and Python.

But I recognise when I'm onto a loser and the discussion I had anticipated about what was really going on at various points in time in the book never got going. After brief forays into why when and how he died (in the house with the black box or was he dead at the outset?), what we thought about the footnotes (best bit for Neil, tedious for most others), why/how some people rated this so highly (Hay Festival literati) and the nature of the Irish police and society, there was at least some acknowledgement from most that it was good to have read it as an 'experience' and so we drifted into a second discussion about Orwell's Coming Up For Air as Will had finished it over the last month. Opinions on that remain as before. Will also added in a couple of other comments and scores on recently completed books including him concurring with the prevailingly positive views on Sacred Games.

4.29

The Elephant Keeper – Christopher Nicholson

Apparently we read two books in April 2010, not sure why now...

It was an interesting discussion - as it flagged up a range of issues to do with writing style, social history etc etc. Also, with it significantly being set in and around the west country a couple of people (Mark T I think for one) found that of added interest. The comments were, on the whole, quite positive other than from Steve and myself and so it was a bit of a surprise when it came to the scoring that they were on the whole quite low to average (apart from Richard and to a lesser extent Mark).

As I recall at this distant moment, the following were key points in the discussion:

The first part of the book was generally agreed to be the best. It told a good story and contained a lot of interesting social commentary e.g. the relationship between master and servant, the reactions to an elephant appearing int he country for (probably) the first time), the description of city and rural life etc

However, there was also a general view that it tailed off in the latter part - in particular when he went to London when several people began to feel that the novel just stopped working

A majority view (though not consensus) that the relationships between the keeper (see I can;t been remember his name - shows what an impact it had on me) and the elephant became unbelievable at the book went on

Differing views on t he writing style. Consensus that he managed to get the flavour of the period but whether it was well written varied from definitely (Richard) to weak (me).

6.01