11 April 2012

Well Written Wednesdays: any amount of rackets

"Policeman MacCruiskeen," said Sergeant Pluck.

Policeman MacCruiskeen put the lamp on the table, shook hands with me, and gave me the time of day with great gravity. His voice was high, almost feminine, and he spoke with a delicate, careful intonation. Then he put the little lamp on the counter and surveyed the two of us.

"Is it about a bicycle?" he asked.

"Not that," said the sergeant. "This is a private visitor who says he did not arrive in the town land upon a bicycle. He has no personal name at all, and his dadda is in far Americay."

"Which of the two Americays?" asked MacCruiskeen.

"The Unified Stations," said the sergeant.

"Likely he is rich by now, if he's in that quarter," said MacCruiskeen, "because there's dollars there, dollars and bucks and nuggets in the ground and any amount of rackets and golf games and musical instruments. It's a free country too by all accounts."

"Free for all," said the sergeant.

-from The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

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This book is crazy. By which I mean philosophically surreal and simultaneously hilarious. (I've been listening to it on CD and the narrator, Jim Norton, is incredible. He does voices! For every single character!)

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