“It would have been a great shock for everybody if Divney had appeared in any place at any time without myself beside him. And it is not strange that two people never came to dislike each other as bitterly as did I and Divney. And two people were never so polite to each other, so friendly in the face. I must go back several years to explain what happened to bring about this peculiar situation.”

This passage emphasizes the strange and paradoxical relationship between Divney and the narrator, emphasizing the contrast between their closeness and their dislike of each other. Their lack of genuine affection speaks to the novel’s interest in The Interchange Between Human and Machine, as characters will continue to behave with a lack of real humanity and connection throughout the text. The narrator again withholds information to build suspense, explaining their relationship in detail before going back to explain the reasons for it.

“[D]e Selby, while writing the Album, paused to consider some point of difficulty and in the meantime engaged in the absent-minded practice known generally as ‘doodling’, then putting his manuscript away. The next time he took it up he was confronted with a mass of diagrams and drawings which he took to be the plans of a type of dwelling he always had in mind and immediately wrote many pages explaining the sketches. ‘In no other way,’ adds the severe Le Fournier, ‘can one explain so regrettable a lapse.’”

This passage is a footnote, written by a fictional commentator, on theories about housing by de Selby, a fictional writer. Flann O’Brien adds verisimilitude with the detail of the footnote citation. The inclusion of the footnote also emphasizes the importance of de Selby to the narrator and his familiarity with both original works and criticism on them. The footnote also builds suspense, because it is included in a section where the narrator describes a tangentially related argument by de Selby about houses rather than revealing what is happening in the moment as he enters old Mathers’s house to search for the money box.

“I cannot hope to describe what it was but it had frightened me very much long before I had understood it even slightly. It was some change which came upon me or upon the room, indescribably subtle, yet momentous, ineffable […] The fingers of my right hand, thrust into the opening in the floor, had closed mechanically, found nothing at all and came up again empty. The box was gone!”

In this passage, descriptive sensory imagery builds tension in between the allusion to something that frightened the narrator and the reveal that it was the disappearance of the money box he had felt just a moment earlier. Much later in the novel, it is revealed that this event was actually the narrator’s death due to the explosive device Divney had left in the floorboards for him to find.

“The dawn was contagious, spreading rapidly about the heavens. Birds were stirring and the great kingly trees were being pleasingly interfered with by the first breezes. My heart was happy and full of zest for high adventure. I did not know my name or where I had come from but the black box was practically in my grasp.”

This passage includes figurative language to draw a comparison between dawn and illness, connoting death rather than the beauty expected in a description of the sunrise. The narrator’s continuing fixation on the “black box” reinforces his desire to benefit from his crime, with boxes becoming a key symbol in the text of his enduring, unacknowledged guilt.

“‘Is it life?’ he answered. ‘I would rather be without it,’ he said, ‘for there is a queer small utility in it. You cannot eat it or drink it or smoke it in your pipe, it does not keep the rain out and it is a poor armful in the dark if you strip it and take it to bed with you and after a night of porter when you are shivering with the red passion. It is a great mistake and a thing better done without, like bed-jars and foreign bacon.’”

This passage exemplifies the absurdist black comedy that prevails throughout the novel. In this passage, O’Brien uses irony—that a character the reader believes is alive is suggesting that he could do without life—as well as extended metaphor. Finnucane takes the idea of life as a utilitarian object to absurd lengths. He compares life to food, tobacco, a raincoat, and a woman and finds it to be useless in comparison to those things. The detail of which other “useless things” also adds comedy by comparing life to foreign bacon.

“Of all the many striking statements made by de Selby, I do not think that any of them can rival his assertion that ‘a journey is an hallucination’. The phrase may be found in the Country Album cheek by jowl with the well-known treatise on ‘tent-suits’, those egregious canvas garments which he designed as a substitute alike for the hated houses and ordinary clothing.”

This passage highlights the repetition of arguments by de Selby. These interludes build tension by functioning as tangents from the action at hand, while also satirizing scholarship and the focus on minutia, playfully invoking The Agony of Banality and Bureaucracy in bookish form.

“‘Would you believe that there is a great increase in crime in this locality? Last year we had sixty-nine cases of no lights and four stolen. This year we have eighty-two cases of no lights, thirteen cases of riding on the footpath, and four stolen […] Before the year is out there is certain to be a pump stolen, a very depraved and despicable manifestation of criminality and a blot on the country.’”

This passage reinforces the local policemen’s obsession with bicycles, speaking to The Interchange Between Human and Machine. There are also allusions to the narrator’s crime: The bicycles invoke the form of transport used to intercept Mathers, while the policeman’s ominous statement describing the theft of a pump as “a very depraved and despicable manifestation of criminality and a blot on the country” invokes the fact that Divney used a pump to assault Mathers.

“He went to the little chest and opened it up again and put his hands down sideways like flat plates or like the fins on a fish and took out of it a smaller chest but one resembling its mother-chest in every particular of appearance and dimension. It almost interfered with my breathing, it was so delightfully unmistakable. I went over and felt it and covered it with my hand to see how big its smallness was.”

As the novel progresses, O’Brien emphasizes subtle but disturbing instances of the uncanny and surrealism to reflect Unknowability as Part of the Human Experience. This passage includes subtle detail and paradox to emphasize the box’s unusual, impossible qualities. That MacCruiskeen’s hands are like the fins of a fish and the box is big in its smallness, for example, highlight the item’s oddity. The passage also includes details about the narrator’s reaction to the box: He is so shocked as to have physiological symptoms of a disturbance to his breathing and a feeling of weakness.

“‘‘I was listening,’ I answered, ‘but I did not succeed in hearing you.’ ‘That does not surprise me intuitively,’ said MacCruiskeen, ‘because it is an indigenous patent of my own. The vibrations of the true notes are so high in their fine frequencies that they cannot be appreciated by the human ear cup. Only myself has the secret of the thing and the intimate way of it, the confidential knack of circumventing it.’”

This passage characterizes MacCruiskeen as an artist and craftsman, who appreciates beauty and art for its own sake and the enjoyment rather than only the utility of items. It also emphasizes the variability of experience and Unknowability as Part of the Human Experience. Even though the narrator and MacCruiskeen are in the same space ostensibly listening to the same instrument, only its creator is able to hear it.

“‘Policeman Fox is the third of us,’ said the Sergeant, ‘but we never see him or hear tell of him at all because he is always on his beat and never off it and he signs the book in the middle of the night when even a badger is asleep. He is as mad as a hare, he never interrogates the public and he is always taking notes. If rat-trap pedals were universal it would be the end of bicycles, the people would die like flies.’”

This passage is significant because it introduces the eponymous “Third Policeman,” Fox. The mystery of the conversation with MacCruiskeen and Fox’s lack of appearance in the barracks increases the sense of suspense and tension around his character. The passage also exemplifies Pluck’s tendency to become distracted and return the conversation to bicycles, in this case his dislike of “rat-trap pedals.”

“It was a queer country we were in. There was a number of blue mountains around at what you might call a respectful distance with a glint of white water coming down the shoulders of one or two of them and they kept hemming us in and meddling oppressively with our minds […] A company of crows came out of a tree when I was watching and flew sadly down to a field where there was a quantity of sheep attired in fine overcoats.”

In this passage, O’Brien satirizes traditional Irish pastoral writing by inflecting the landscape with uncanny elements. The passage also features the text’s characteristic use of pathetic fallacy and anthropomorphism, with the mountains “hemming us in and meddling oppressively with our minds,” with crows flying “sadly” and the sheep “attired in fine overcoats.” These details highlight the fact that the landscape is not what it appears.

“‘Michael Gilhaney […] is always going to a particular destination or other on his bicycle at every hour of the day or coming back from here at every other hour. If it wasn’t that is bicycle was stolen every Monday he would be sure to be more than half-way now.’ ‘Half way to where?’ ‘Half-way to being a bicycle himself.’”

This passage invokes The Interchange Between Human and Machine. The passage uses syntax that mirrors its content. O’Brien describes Gilhaney’s constant progress back and forth across the landscape, while the end of the passage subverts expectation because the narrator thinks the Sergeant’s “half-way” is in reference to location or geography, whereas he actually means he is metaphorically “half-way” through the transformation from human to bicycle.

“‘The behavior of a bicycle that has a high content of humanity,’ he said, ‘is very cunning and entirely remarkable. You never see them moving by themselves but you meet them in the least accountable places unexpectedly. Did you never see a bicycle leaning against the dresser of a warm kitchen when it is pouring outside? […] [N]obody ever caught them with a mouthful of steak. All I know is that the food disappears.’”

This passage extends details about how humans can become more like bicycles and vice versa, speaking to The Interchange Between Human and Machine. This passage anthropomorphizes the bicycles by emphasizing their human-like discomfort: They can become cold and it is implied that they hunger for food.

“I felt so sad and so entirely disappointed that tears came into my eyes and a lump of incommunicable poignancy swelled tragically in my throat. I began to feel intensely every fragment of my equal humanity […] To leave it all without good reason and to smash the little empire into small fragments was a thing too pitiful even to refuse to think about.”

O’Brien uses understatement to include humor in the passage, as the narrator describes himself as “disappointed” that he is going to be hanged. The narrator’s rising emotional reaction and upset at the thought that he will die “without good reason” once more draws attention to his inherent selfishness, as he does not care that he murdered Mathers “without good reason” and never demonstrates any such emotion toward Mathers’s untimely end.

“Listen. Before I go I will tell you this. I am your soul and all your souls. When I am gone you are dead […] You will be left with nothing behind you and nothing to give the waiting ones. Woe to you when they find you out! Good-bye!

Although I thought this speech was rather far-fetched and ridiculous, he was gone and I was dead.”

O’Brien characterizes the narrator’s soul, Joe, as a separate sentient being from himself. This passage takes place just after the narrator offends Joe by thinking of his nonexistent body as scaly and Joe is threatening to leave. O’Brien contrasts the speakers’ tones in this passage as well: Joe’s thoughts are emphatic and descriptive, and the narrator’s are humorously straightforward: “[H]e was gone and I was dead.”

“‘But the secret of it all-in-all,’ continued the Sergeant, ‘is the daily readings. Attend to your daily readings and your conscience will be as clear as a clean shirt on Sunday morning. I am a great believer in the daily readings.’ ‘Did I see everything of importance?’ At this the policemen looked at each other in amazement and laughed outright.”

This passage is significant because it includes a direct reference to conscience. While the novel functions overall as a representation of how guilt is experienced, direct references to guilt and conscience are rare. The policemen’s reaction to the narrator’s question about whether he saw “everything” also emphasizes Unknowability as Part of the Human Experience.

“The signal distinction of the manuscript [de Selby’s Codex] is that not one word of the writing is legible. Attempts made by different commentators to decipher certain passages which look less formidable than others have been characterized by fantastic divergencies, not in the meaning of the passages (of which there is no question) but in the brand of nonsense which is evolved. One passage, described by Bassett as being ‘a penetrating treatise on old age’ is referred to by Henderson (biographer of Bassett) as ‘a not unbeautiful description of lambing operations on an unspecified farm.’”

Chapter 9 is brief and consists largely of the narrator’s reflections on de Selby’s water experiments and footnotes providing more detail about his work. The intense focus on de Selby reflects the narrator’s mental state and avoidance of his actual situation: Having just visited eternity and about to be hanged for his crime against Mathers. This passage also once more satirizes scholarship and The Agony of Banality and Bureaucracy with how the commentators offer wildly different theories on passages that are not even “legible” in the first place.

“Rain was beginning to beat on the windows, not a soft or friendly rain but large angry drops which came spluttering with great force upon the glass. The sky was grey and stormy and out of it I heard the harsh shouts of wild eyes and ducks laboring across the wind on their coarse pinions. Black quails called sharply from their hidings and a swollen stream was babbling dementedly.”

This passage shows the narrator’s gradual shift from thoughts of de Selby to his own reality. However, O’Brien builds tension through the very slow process, including a vivid description of the scenery. The use of anthropomorphism—the “dementedly babbling” stream—increases the ominous tone before it is revealed that the hammering the narrator heard at the opening of the chapter is the man building the scaffold for the hanging.

“Down into the earth where dead men go I would go soon and maybe come out of it again in some healthy way, free and innocent of all human perplexity. I would perhaps be the chill of an April wind, an essential part of some indomitable river or be personally concerned in the ageless perfection of some rank mountain bearing down upon the mind by occupying forever a position in the blue easy distance.”

This passage is a rare instance in which the narrator directly reflects on his “impending” death. It connects the afterlife with the landscape and the pastoral imagery throughout the novel. The narrator’s potential inclusion in the landscape is particularly fitting in connection with the persistent anthropomorphic descriptions of natural elements with human characteristics.

“You know, of course, that I will be leaving you soon?

That is the usual arrangement.

I would not like to go without placing on record my pleasure in having been associated with you. It is no lie to say that I have always received the greatest courtesy and consideration at your hands. I can only regret that it is not practicable to offer you some small token of my appreciation.”

This passage is a tender moment between the narrator and his soul, Joe. O’Brien represents them not as two parts of a whole, but as human friends who feel the impulse to give each other gifts. Joe’s formal language (“my pleasure in having been associated with you […] I have always received the greatest courtesy and consideration at your hands”) adds a touch of humor to the exchange.

“I could not help recalling what the Sergeant had told me about his fears for his bicycle and his decision to keep it in solitary confinement. If there is good reason for locking a bicycle in a cell like a dangerous criminal, I reflected, it is fair enough to think that it will try to escape if given the opportunity.”

This passage is significant as an instance that shows rather than tells the strange behavior of a bicycle with human characteristics, invoking The Interchange Between Human and Machine. Though the narrator has heard consistently about this phenomenon and believes it logically, he is shocked to see the evidence of it for himself. The image of a bicycle in solitary confinement extends the absurd image of bicycles as humans: Not only doing typical things like moving around, but also something that is unusual even for a human—being incarcerated.

“Her saddle seemed to spread invitingly into the most enchanting of all seats while her two handlebars, floating finely with the wild grace of alighting wings, beckoned me to lend my mastery for free and joyful journeyings, the lightest of light running in the company of the swift ground winds to safe havens far away […] How desirable her seat was, how charming the invitation of her slim encircling handle-arms, how unaccountably competent and reassuring her pump resting warmly against her rear thigh.”

This passage is from an extended description of the Sergeant’s bicycle, which echoes some of the descriptions of natural landscape that appear earlier in the novel. The narrator describes the bicycle as human and feminine, and the description is detailed and sensual. It also speaks to The Interchange Between Human and Machine, as the narrator feels greater intimacy with the bicycle than he does with any of his fellow humans.

“‘I thought you were dead!’ The great fat body in the uniform did not remind me of anybody that I knew but the face at the top of it belonged to old Mathers. It was not as I had recalled seeing it last whether in my sleep or otherwise, deathly and unchanging; it was now red and gross as if gallons of hot thick blood had been pumped into it […] ‘That is a nice thing to say,’ he said, ‘but it is no matter because I thought the same thing about yourself. I do not understand your unexpected corporality after the morning on the scaffold.’ ‘I escaped,’ I stammered. He gave me long searching glances. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.”

This passage aligns with the novel’s guilt themes, as it shows the narrator’s subconscious focus on his murder victim, even when he thinks he is talking to someone else. It questions whether either character is alive or dead through both detail and dialogue. The policeman seems to have the face of Mathers, and may be dead; the description of the face as “gross” and containing gallons of blood also suggests that he is corpse-like and uncanny. His question to the narrator about the sureness of his escape adds ambiguity about the previous events on the scaffold and whether he is in fact alive or dead, reflecting Unknowability as Part of the Human Experience.