@article{pr 7662, author = {Alexandra Irimia}, title = {Bureaucratic Sorceries in The Third Policeman: Anthropological Perspectives on Magic and Officialdom}, volume = {6}, year = {2022}, url = {https://parishreview.openlibhums.org/article/id/7662/}, issue = {2}, doi = {10.16995/pr.7662}, abstract = {This article discusses <i>The Third Policeman</i> through the lens of a dialectic of enchantment and disenchantment that is firmly anchored in the history of anthropological discourse on bureaucracy (Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss, Tambiah, Herzfeld, Graeber, Jones). From this angle, Flann O’Brien’s novel is examined as an aesthetic illustration of an essentially anthropological argument: although bureaucracy has been described as an eminently rational form of social systematisation, regulation, and control (since Weber), it also functions, paradoxically, as a symbolic site for irrationality and supernatural occurrences, haunted by madness, mystery, and delusion. The novel is intriguing partly due to its nonchalant, humorous entwining of seemingly incompatible imageries (in this case, magic and officialdom) – a strategy that proves effective not only for creating fantastic ambiguity, but also for reworking a predilect theme of bureaucratic fiction: the coexistence of rational and irrational modes of thinking, in an infinite circling around the absurd oddities of an incomprehensible Law and the impenetrable opacity of its higher powers.}, month = {12}, pages = {1–21}, keywords = {bureaucracy,magic,anthropology,sociology,Flann O'Brien,The Third Policeman}, issn = {2634-145X}, publisher={Open Library of Humanities}, journal = {The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O'Brien Studies} }