Chapter 6

On satire and The Third Policeman

Simpson’s doctoral thesis (1984, see also 1986, 1997) presented an innovative stylistic account of Flann O’Brien’s absurdist or post-modernist novel The Third Policeman, originally written around 1940 but not published until 1967. This early stylistic work drew on sociolinguistic patterns in order to show the ways that our familiar language usages can be subverted for satirical, humorous or dark effects, particularly in dealing with the misdirection that underlies the series of red herrings across the narrative world of the novel. In this chapter, Michael Toolan takes Simpson’s later thinking on satire to re-evaluate the novel in terms of its addressivity and its complex layering of narrator, author and pseudonym. The chapter captures the modern stylistic method of moving from key literary critical questions, to text, to different framing contexts of history, authorship and genre.