The Dalkey Archive by Flann O'Brien
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"One might describe a plenum as a phenomenon or existence full of itself but inert. Obviously space does not satisfy such a condition. But time is a plenum, immobile, immutable, ineluctable, irrevocable, a condition of absolute stasis. Time does not pass. Change and movement may occur within time."

Flann O'Brien (pseudonym of Brian O'Nolan) is my literary discovery of 2017. This great yet not widely known Irish writer is the author of The Third Policeman , to me the funniest novel ever written in the English language. His critically acclaimed At Swim-Two-Birds is a masterpiece precursor of post-modern literature. So I am more than a little disappointed with his The Dalkey Archive (1964), an interesting and readable novel, yet in no way even close to the greatness of the two other works.

Dalkey shares two motifs with The Third Policeman: the character of De Selby, the "mad scientist", and the idea that humans and bicycles can morph - perhaps transmute would be a better term - into each other. This fabulously deranged idea, first introduced in Policeman is dwelled upon here and explained via Sergeant Fottrell's Mollycule Theory. Mollycules are transported from a bicycle to a human and presumably vice versa through repeated contact of human body with the bicycle saddle. Alas, because of repetition, what is out-of-this-world hilarious and unprecedented in its sheer audacity in Policeman becomes just slightly amusing here. Also, De Selby is side-splittingly hilarious when he is talked about; when he gets a speaking part in the story the hilarity is much lessened. (In an essay on O'Brien I read that he was unable to publish Policeman during his lifetime, which may explain the repetition of motifs that the author wanted to save from oblivion.)

The plot of Dalkey is demented but not as wonderfully wacko as that of Policeman. Neither is the novel as masterfully constructed as Swim. Mick, an Irish lad in the little town of Dalkey, and his friend Hackett encounter a stranger who happens to be De Selby himself. Over whisky they discuss the erroneous ways of Descartes' philosophy, the nature of time (see the epigraph), and De Selby's plans to destroy all life on Earth by totally eliminating oxygen from the Earth's atmosphere. De Selby leads them to an undersea cave where - equipped with diving gear - they have a lively religious and philosophical discussion with none other than Saint Augustine. De Selby has the power of control over time: bringing back dead people to life is not a big deal for him. Even better, he can easily change one-week-old-whisky to several years of age - a feat quite useful in Ireland, one presumes. By the way, most scenes are accompanied by consumption of certain types of liquids in the form of stout, whisky, gin, or - gasp! - wine.

To me, the Saint Augustine scene is the best in the book, which sort of goes down from there. True, we have plenty of things happen, such as conversations with St. Francis of Assisi, attempts to rehabilitate Judas Iscariot, and - most impressively - several meetings with James Joyce, who had only pretended to have died. Joyce maintains that ... No, let's not spoil the plot as this might be the funniest thing in the novel for readers who do not know the author's other works.

To sum up, neither the insanity nor the originality of the plot reach the top registers. The prose is still wonderful and reading the book made my fascination with English - the language that I would like to master one day - even stronger.

Three and a quarter stars.

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