The Liberties, Dublin
This line -- "Is it about a bicycle?" -- is culled (rather shamelessly) from one of my favorite books, The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien. Considering the novel's brilliance, it seems a travesty to quote from the back-of-the-book copy, but in the interests of midnight deadlines, and because it's a delicious thought to remember what drew me to the book in the first place, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Consider this an appetizer for the all-you-can-eat Flann O'Brien-a-thon that has been threatening to surface for some time now. The teaser reads as such:
A murder thriller, an hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender, brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle and a chilling fable of unending guilt.
How easily can one confuse love with bicycles? It's not just some fanciful notion -- it's written right there in the alphabet.
4 comments:
"An hilarious"?! Argh! "H" is not a vowel, dammit.
I love this one, obviously. Also so grateful that you introduced me to The Third Policeman years ago. I tried describing it to a friend recently and failed. Should have consulted the back copy.
Ha! Ray, I totally thought of you as I was typing "an hilarious" and knew you'd have something to say on the matter. It's not an American edition, if that makes it any less egregious.
An hilarious is correct, this side of the pond. I'm tempted to add an historical aside but will leave it at that.
Yep. You're off the hook, Conan. But Yanks with such affectations will be roundly ridiculed.
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