During the ‘arts and literature’ segment of a quiz night held to garner support for journalists in Gaza, our group vigorously debated the phrasing of a particular question: “Which tool is initially used by the protagonist to commit a murder in Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman?”
The term ‘initially’ raised some eyebrows, at least amongst those of us who had perused the novel.
As it happens, there is no need for alerts about revealing critical plot details, because The Third Policeman is an outlier among thrillers, revealing misdeeds and identities in the very first line like so:
“Not everyone is privy to how I murdered old Philip Mathers, marring his jaw with my spade; however, firstly it’s important to talk about my camaraderie with John Divney, as he was the one who toppled Mathers initially, by landing a powerful blow on his neck with a specially made bicycle-pump, constructed from a hollow iron rod by him.”
Therefore, the narrator turns to a spade, albeit not ‘initially’ (an implication of successive murders employing various tools – an alert about plot reveal: this is not the case).
It raised the question: Was the quiz master mixing up the anonymous fictional narrator with Flann O’Brien, who was also known as Brian O’Nolan in real life, and was presumably murderer in accordance to his former book ‘At Swim-two-birds’; thus, theoretically could be regarded to have ‘initially used’ the bicycle pump as his tool for murder?
Following considerable contemplation, we elected the pump as the desired response, bracketing the spade while providing a short summary of the storyline. However, it so happened that the spade was the sought answer, though it appears we received the point post an outcry of outrage which we fervently lodged.
On occasion, an abundance of knowledge can seem problematic, albeit not significantly enough to inhibit our success at the quiz game. It’s important to mention that we gave back our winnings, dubbing them to the same cause as the rest of the proceedings; supporting journalists in Gaza, Palestine, who have much graver circumstances to contend with than imaginary homicide.
Allow me to revisit the topic of Father Mathew’s absent digits. With thanks to Des O’Neill, a reader, I got directed towards an intriguing tale of another Dublin monument featuring an extra finger. The statue in question is Sir Henry Marsh (1790-1860), whose stone representation, prominently exhibited in the Royal College of Physicians on Kildare Street, shows a seemingly casual yet conspicuous bend of the right index finger.
However, the real-life Marsh was incapable of replicating this gesture. As a young aspiring surgeon, a self-inflicted scalpel wound resulted in the digit’s amputation due to gangrene. This forced Marsh to reconsider his professional paths and opt for the route of a physician. While it’s debatable whether doctors can heal themselves, the sculptor, John Foley, achieved the laudable feat of restoring Marsh’s finger in the statue. However, this wasn’t merely to conceal a medical blunder.
As Ciara O’Neill wrote in the Winter 2023 edition of a Journal of Medical Humanities, this approach of “smoothing out of pathology” could be observed in some other celebrated sculptures of the era, such as Josiah Wedgewood, the expert ceramicist. After enduring the hardship of smallpox, one of Wedgewood’s limbs was amputated beneath the knee. However, a subsequent statue by Edward Davis portrayed him with a flawless and proportionate set of limbs.
Another literature-related query levied during the quiz was about what chapters are called in Joyce’s Ulysses. The answer, quite simply, is “episodes”. Nonetheless, while visiting Dublin’s Mullingar House on Tuesday, I couldn’t help but think that the peculiarly phrased plaque above the door could inspire a more advanced question about Joyce’s work.
In relation to the ‘Finnegans Wake’ novel by James Joyce, it’s noted that Dublin Tourism’s usage of “[H]ome of all [C]haracters and [E]lements” was an attempt to incorporate ‘HCE’, standing for Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker or the popular phrase “Here Comes Everyone”. The latter was the pseudonym of the novel’s central male character whose initials were recurrent throughout the literary work.
Previously, a sign that proudly displayed this phrase was mounted on the upper level of a building, held in place by deteriorating fixtures. The fear was that due to wear and tear, it might eventually lose its grip, potentially causing harm to a bystander, perhaps someone studying the works of Joyce. Andrew Basquille, who took part in a centenary reading of the book’s ‘Mamalujo’ section present at the jam-packed bar at 11am, hinted at this potentially disastrous event.
Luckily, as Basquille indicated, the current property owners have taken measures to secure the sign. It has been securely re-attached and now occupies a much more prominent position on the ground level of the building, just above the entrance.