The Third Policeman and The Land Across

Gerry Quinn · 14 Sep 2014, 17:48 · from 2014-September.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 18:48:46 +0100
Subject: (urth) The Third Policeman and The Land Across
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On 14/09/2014 17:34, Marc Aramini wrote:
> I read it years and years ago ... didn't really remind me of Wolfe at 
> all. Definitely reminded me of a bit of Beckett's Molloy 
> trilogy/Waiting for Godot and RA Lafferty (though much closer is At 
> Swim Two Bird's, with its very similar parallels to the Lafferty 
> canon in The Devil is Dead, but it could just be the "Irishness" of it 
> all.) Maybe I will read it again some day. I am thinking there are 
> parts of Lanark that resonate with The Third Policeman as well.  There 
> is this sense of phantasmagoric mistaken identity and a blurring 
> between the living and the dead held forever in a holding pattern that 
> all those works seem to have in common.
>

I always reckoned Martin Amis's _Other People_ was to some degree 
derivative of _The Third Policeman_.

- Gerry Quinn

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