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Flann O’Brien: The Third Policeman (abridged)

Read by Jim Norton

It’s clever, funny and inventive – and as disturbing as one should expect from a writer who believed humour to be “the handmaid of sorrow and fear”

Flann O’Brien: The Third Policeman (abridged)

Read by Jim Norton

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44.1 kHz, 16 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

$38.75

320 kbps, MP3

$30.00

This release includes a digital booklet

Stream now lossless, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit
It’s clever, funny and inventive – and as disturbing as one should expect from a writer who believed humour to be “the handmaid of sorrow and fear”

About

Flann O’Brien’s most popular and surrealistic novel concerns an imaginary, hellish village police force and a local murder. Weird, satirical, and very funny, it is read by Irish master reader Jim Norton.

Contents and tracklist

Human existence being a hallucination…
Track length5:39
Four years passed away happily enough…
Track length5:07
Old Mathers lived alone.
Track length4:58
And that is why John Divney and I…
Track length4:46
I cannot hope to describe what it was…
Track length5:16
My mind went back at once to John Divney…
Track length6:06
'Every time my birthday came,' Old Mathers…
Track length6:00
Signor Beniamino Bari, Joe said…
Track length6:04
He then did something that took me by surprise.
Track length5:52
I cannot say why I did not stop to think…
Track length6:19
Police MacCruiskeen smiled…
Track length5:44
So much for de Selby.
Track length4:43
He walked back to the dresser…
Track length7:15
When I penetrated back to the dayroom…
Track length5:12
We were now going through a country…
Track length6:01
I looked carefully around me.
Track length5:07
The Sergeant then became thoughtful…
Track length5:29
'Well now,' the Sergeant said.
Track length6:10
MacCruiskeen was not gone for long…
Track length5:13
'And when I have a shout shut in that box…'
Track length6:22
Puzzled and frightened, I tried to understand…
Track length5:49
He drew the stick…
Track length5:48
It is peculiar that when one expects…
Track length6:29
The ease with which the Sergeant…
Track length4:47
I heard the Sergeant sighing heavily…
Track length5:22
A curious contretemps arose…
Track length4:25
When I awoke again…
Track length5:09
I looked at him with a mild enquiry.
Track length6:03
His words, now in the air and out of doors…
Track length6:30
MacCruiskeen gave a smile…
Track length3:06
Footnote 1: Le Fournier, the conservative…
Track length4:01
Too much credit cannot be given to Hatchjaw…
Track length6:46
I arose and stretched my legs…
Track length6:31
A thickening of the right hand…
Track length5:51
This is a brave night!' I swung round…
Track length6:05
'Before I go,' I said, 'There is one thing…'
Track length5:59
I could not help smiling at him…
Track length6:04
There was nothing altogether unnatural…
Track length4:22
My feet carried my nerveless body…
Track length4:31

Awards and reviews

It’s clever, funny and inventive – and as disturbing as one should expect from a writer who believed humour to be “the handmaid of sorrow and fear”

I thought Jim Norton reading Ulysses was as good as it gets. This is even better.

and a soul called Joe, who does not remember who he is and who may or may not be dead.

Read aloud in Jim Norton’s lilting, confident brogue, all the musicality and wit of O’Brien’s writing is bought out, and our hero’s dreamlike, circular journey through a looking-glass world of twisted logic becomes almost plausible.

Audiophile Audition

This complicated novel’s saving grace is an unexpected ending, and Jim Norton’s narration. He employs varying tones and pitches, and one of the officers’ voices is a wonderful Indian-British accent with a friendly, commanding authority.
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