an odd, solemn, dry book that feels challenging to review. again, extremely masculine in a way that fascinates me. is it interesting? not particularly. is it engaging? also not very much. i take umbridge with steve almond's assertion that the book is "utterly riveting" considering that very little actually happens throughout the book. but it is well-written, and at times quite insightful; i found myself marking down many pages for notable prose that felt like striking illustrations of the human experience. kind of like eating a saltine by itself. 

"one moment was juxtaposed against another, yet isolated from it, and he had the feeling that he was removed from time, watching as it passed before him like a great unevenly turned diorama"

"he came to look forward to these rare and unpredictable moments, for in that sleep-drugged acquiescence he could pretend to himself that he found a kind of response."

"he was fourty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember"

"the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another."

all of page 213