…which is that the protagonist is, as TV Tropes says, Dead All Along. Best rendition of hell in Irish literature since the sermon in Joyce's Portrait.

And just as funny. Funnier. All the way through. Spoof pedantry never gets tired in O'Brien's hands. There are some truly obscene passages about bicycles. What's really surprising is the proximity of some of the scenes to contemporary pulp SF, especially the trip to "eternity" with its stocks of "omnium," as well as the nigh-Lovecraftian, geometrically impossible stations from which the policemen operate. I suppose O'Brien could have seen some Yank mags, or perhaps it's just convergent evolution from earlier scientific romance available everywhere. Speaking of convergent evolution, it's not far from the afterlife represented in Dick's Ubik, too.

I'm sure many of the jokes went right over my head. Why are the devils of Hell policemen anyway, in the rendition of an Irish government functionary in 1940? I read and loved At-Swim-Two Birds as a high-schooler without the least clue about any of his targets there except (sort of) Joyce. At some point I read The Poor Mouth (in English) and ditto. I felt a bit more in command of what was going on in the columns in The Best of Myles. But anyway it's just fun to go along with it, like the loser protagonist, as things get more and more absurdly out of hand.