What The Third Policeman is - and is not

Don't read Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman for the plot, which is ludicrous in the good sense of the term (i.e., something to laugh about) and which will drive you nuts if you try to take it literally but do read it for the humor, which I think you can pick up on any page, any snatch of dialog, and rumination by the unnamed narrator - and in particular in the "footnotes," which represent the narrator's thinking and writing about his favorite philosopher/scientist, de Selby. In the section I just read the narrator expounds a few of de Selby's theories, such as his theories about the noise the results from hammering, about which he opines that the noise comes about from the explosion of thousands (millions?) of microscopic balloons that constitute the atmosphere. He also has a "famous" set of theories about water and his turned his house into a laboratory for water experiments - a lair of pipes, spigots, and valves that enable him to draw so much water that he aroused the authorities. His experiments involve efforts to "dilute" water, for whatever reason and by methods and means that remain mysterious. The narrator shares w/ us lots of information about controversies surrounding de Selby studies, one in particular that involves a manuscript though by some to be the key to understanding his work abut that appears to be something like 200 pages of writing (on both sides of the paper) in pencil and entirely illegible. Some claim to have cracked the code; others, that de Selby was cracked. Anyway, Third Policeman (who, by the way, has not yet appeared in the novel except by reference - his name is Fox and he works the night shift, supposedly) is funny throughout and, at this point (3/4 through) the narrator is being held in a cell in the police station on the charge of murdering his neighbor in a botched robbery (this happens to be true, but the police have no evidence but arrest him anyway) and he's scheduled for execution in a day or so after his arrest; he watches from his cell as they erect the gallows, and ponders ideas for escape. Despite that fairly reasonable summary of the plot, this is by no means a police procedural, a crime novel, nor a thriller - it's a novel of the bizarre, much like an extended Monty Python episode (as noted yesterday, I'm sure Python was influenced by O'Brien).