Seven aspects of O'Brien's The Third Policerman

Following up on yesteday's post as to what Flann O'Brien's (1940?) novel, The Third Policeman, is and is not: I see it as a compendium of satires on various literary (a nod to O'Brien's countryman, Joyce, there w/ his compendium of literary styles in the English lit history chapter in Ulysses): First (and foremost?), it's a satire on police procedurals/crime novels - beginning w/ the (unnamed) narrator's confession to the murder of neighbor Mathis (and his claim to have conspired w/ his tenant, Divney, in the crime), and he goes on to describe the murder plot and his intention to make of w/ a strongbox of valuables and of course what we quickly recognize is that the narrator is being duped and set up by his so-called partner. Second, it's a satire on scholarly writing, as much of the novel consists of the narrator's occasional comments about his revered philosopher-physicist, de Selby, w/ each mention appended by lengthy footnotes in small point size tracing scholarly debates about some of de Selby's "ideas" (e.g., that darkness at night is caused by black winds), a great parody of academic writing. Third, it's a take on supernatural sci-fi/adventure writing, as the narrator heads off in search of the strongbox and ends up at a police station where the two officers on duty take him on an underground journey to a secret laboratory - a dreamlike sequence so extreme and preposterous as to be parodic rather than surreal or in any way frightening. Fourth, it's a parody of an adventure novel, as the narrator ends up in prison and sentenced to death and as he watches the construction of the gallows on which he is to hang - and plots, in a bumbling, comical manner, his escape. Fifth - and there may be a bit of a spoiler here - it's a parody of a ghost story, as we learn (though we might have figured much earlier) that the narrator is a ghost who - at the end - appears before his co-conspirator, terrifies him (to death), and they head off together to the surreal police station, evidently doomed to repeat for eternity this pattern of crime and punishment, which makes it, sixth, a parody of existential, philosophical, moralistic writing. Seventh - in this is not a parody or satire - it's a highly comic novel from which you could take almost any passage and certainly any passage of dialog and read it aloud and get a laugh; as noted previously, O'Brien had to be a huge influence on Monty Python (just as he was influenced by Joyce) in a great chain of Anglo-Irish literary comedy.