The Master and Margarita (2 of 5) & The Third Policeman
Bicycles, bombs and basements
Dear classics reader,
In this week’s Séance of Black Magic you will find:
The announcement of our monthly read-along for June;
A report from our conversation about Dream Story – at the Hatchards Classics Book Club last night;
Birthday wishes to Thomas Pynchon;
A preview of coming attractions and other notices;
And for paid subscribers:
The week’s new classics – including the first English translation of a 1970s Taiwanese short story collection;
And our second discussion of The Master and Margarita – with notes on apartments, theatres and basements.
This newsletter may be too long for your email inbox. If so, please click ‘View entire message’ at the bottom – or visit Substack.
June’s read-along – The Third Policeman
I’m delighted to announce our next monthly read-along. Please join me in June to read Flann O’Brien’s absurd, hilarious and nightmarish novel, The Third Policeman.
Like Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, O’Brien finished writing The Third Policeman in 1940 but it wasn’t published in his lifetime. It was first published posthumously in 1967, coincidentally the same year that The Master and Margarita completed publication.
What is it?
The Third Policeman is a comic tale about an Irish village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle, and a chilling fable of purgatorial guilt.
Why are we reading it?
There really is nothing quite like The Third Policeman although people love to compare Flann O’Brien to James Joyce. ‘Flann O’Brien learned from Joyce the art of tuning language to a lyrical pitch,’ said the Sunday Times, ‘which he could then turn to his purpose, whether it was to be plain foolery, unconcealed indignation or high comedy.’ ‘Even with Ulysses and Finnegans Wake behind him,’ echoed the Observer, ‘James Joyce might have been envious.’ James Joyce himself said that O’Brien was ‘a real writer, with the true comic spirit’. ‘I declare to God,’ said O’Brien once, ‘if I hear that name Joyce one more time I will surely froth at the gob.’
Which edition should I read?
The Third Policeman is published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics in the UK:
and by the Dalkey Archive in the US:
How will we read it?
The Third Policeman is 200 pages long and has 12 chapters.
I suggest we read it over three weeks:
We’ll start reading on Friday 5th June.
On Friday 12th June we’ll discuss Chapters 1-5;
On Friday 19th June we’ll discuss Chapters 6-8;
And on Friday 26th June we’ll discuss Chapters 9-12.
Then, if you’re near London, you’d be very welcome to book a ticket for our discussion of The Third Policeman at the Hatchards Classics Book Club on Thursday 2 July.
We meet downstairs at Hatchards (187 Piccadilly) on the first Thursday of every month at 6.30pm – tickets cost £5 with a free Hatchards Reward Card and include a glass (or two) of wine. These book club events are not live-streamed, but afterwards I post a report of our discussion here on Substack (see below).
As ever, our weekly read-along discussions of The Third Policeman will be for paid subscribers only. More details here.
But if you – or anyone you know – would like to join this or future read-alongs, but can’t afford a paid subscription, just let me know and I’ll send a gift subscription.
If you buy a copy of The Third Policeman through Bookshop.org (UK) or Bookshop.org (US), Read the Classics will earn a commission from your purchase. Thank you in advance for your support!
Dream Story Book Club
Last night we had an excellent discussion of Dream Story at the Hatchards Classics Book Club. Here’s my report:
And here are links to all our Dream Story posts:
The Schedule (13 March)
Arthur Schnitzler (27 March)
0. Book covers (3 April)
1. Chapters 1-4 – and vehmic court judges (10 April)
2. Chapters 5-7 – adaptations and alternate endings (17 April)
If you would like to come to our next Hatchards Classics Book Club discussion, you’d be very welcome! We will be discussing Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita on Thursday 4th June.
Happy Birthday Thomas Pynchon
In other news, today is Thomas Pynchon’s 89th birthday.
Thomas Pynchon was born in 1937 and is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow, Slow Learner, a collection of short stories, Vineland, Mason and Dixon, Against the Day, Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge and, most recently, Shadow Ticket. He received the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow in 1974.
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1973)
We could tell you the year is 1944, that the main character is called Tyrone Slothrop and that he has a problem because bombs are falling across Europe and crashing to the earth at the exact locations of his sexual conquests. But that doesn’t really begin to cover it. Reading this book is like falling down a rabbit hole into an outlandish, sinister, mysterious, absurd, compulsive netherworld. As The Financial Times said, ‘you must forget earlier notions about life and letters and even the Novel.’
[UK] Vintage Classics | 912 pages
[US] Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition | 784 pages
Coming Attractions and Other Notices
Future monthly read-alongs
For a sneak preview of our upcoming monthly read-alongs, take a peak here.
My Bookshelf
It was a pleasure to be interviewed by Mathew Lyons recently for his excellent Writer’s Bookshelf series on The Broken Compass.
Read the interview here.for my views on Enid Blyton, Laurence Sterne and Herman Melville – and why I prefer reading fiction to non-fiction.
Annual book subscription
And if you’re enjoying our read-alongs, why not treat yourself to the Hatchards Classic Book Club annual book subscription?
You (or a friend) can receive all the books we read each month here on Read the Classics, beautifully gift-wrapped and delivered to your door, anywhere in the world, as well as a year’s complimentary subscription to Read the Classics, so you can choose to read along with us, if you wish.
To find out more, follow this link or email Hatchards directly: subscriptions@hatchards.co.uk
