Book No. 30 of 2021
Such a wistful book, and one that made me feel more pity for the narrator/protagonist than I think I have ever felt. (Usually I feel empathy or sympathy, but rarely straight-up pity, and even more rarely do I feel pity in such amounts.) There’s some off-the-charts unreliable narrator energy here, and it makes for some deeply ironic and at times twisted humor that undergirds the gentility of the storytelling.
I still feel somewhat haunted by the quiet heartbreak of this story—as clueless as the protagonist is, and as committed as he is to a system that he has no idea has him boxed in, I feel for him (and uncomfortably found myself relating to the feeling that you are indirectly contributing to the good of humanity by contributing unseen labor). Also, weirdly uncomfortable and relevant reading about fascist sympathizing (with all of its socially acceptable justifications) in 2021?!?
Similar Reads
The travelogue-as-background-for-personal-philosophizing format reminded me of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
There is no way for me to read this and NOT think of Downton Abbey.
The wistfulness and observational reflections on life remind me of Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog.