The Third Policeman by Flan O'Brien

Imagine Alice's Adventures in Wonderland if Alice was a thirty-year old murderer with a wooden leg and an obsession with a crazy scientist and instead of the caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat and co. there are policemen obsessed with bicycles. I found this book less mind-boggling than At Swim-Two-Birds, but a lot of fun. I especially like O'Brien's tendency to suddenly transition into a quasi-mythological language, full of convoluted and bizarre imagery. His particular brand of nonsense is somehow so deeply satisfying, like Oscar Wilde's paradoxes, it calls attention to things that shouldn't make sense, but almost do, which points out the absurdity of the ordinary world. Disturbing, fun and something of a mind-fuck. All very good things.