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the "Atomic Theory"
In Flann O'Brian's "The Third Policeman,"
" ...the main text is primarily concerned with the adventures of our antihero who, wandering through a weirdly defamiliarized rural district, comes to be detained by a pair of cheerfully batty policeman. Their worldview is what you might call bicyclogical: things fully make sense only when regarded through a lens involving tire pumps, handlebars, and light dynamos. It's connected to the `Atomic Theory': `People who spend most of the natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycles as a result of the interchanging of atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.' " O'Neill, Joseph. "The Last Laugh." May 2008. _TheAtlantic.com_. 9 May 2008 http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/flann-obrien/2 .... seems oddly pertinent though I'm not sure how or why. -- Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" |
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#2
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the "Atomic Theory"
On May 10, 12:33*am, Mike Rocket J Squirrel
wrote: In Flann O'Brian's "The Third Policeman," " ...the main text is primarily concerned with the adventures of our antihero who, wandering through a weirdly defamiliarized rural district, comes to be detained by a pair of cheerfully batty policeman. Their worldview is what you might call bicyclogical: things fully make sense only when regarded through a lens involving tire pumps, handlebars, and light dynamos. It's connected to the `Atomic Theory': `People who spend most of the natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycles as a result of the interchanging of atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.' " O'Neill, Joseph. "The Last Laugh." May 2008. _TheAtlantic.com_. 9 May 2008 http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/flann-obrien/2 ... seems oddly pertinent though I'm not sure how or why. Easy to explain. He's Irish. Flann O'Brian is one of the great comic writers of the world. It is a pity he did not write more. There's a certain amount of truth in his description. The time he describes was of course before my time, but I remember that a couple of years ago a retired policeman entertained a party with a story of an inspector coming to a rural police station in the middle 1950's intent on viewing the bicycle each constable was still supposed to supply out of his own pocket, and how the country coppers wheeled through the single bicycle that was owned by some young unmarried fellow (he needed the bike to visit farmers' daughters, no? --- yeesss!) no fewer than six times, each one explaining that Black Dougal gave a very special discount to the police on this colour of Raleigh. The outrageous colour was silver... Andre Jute http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/B...20CYCLING.html |
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