Didn't expect to like this but it ended up being incredibly enjoyable—I just don't know that I would re-read. Really well-done character study about a man who is both self-hating and egotistical, who has strong views about the world and his place in it yet feels inferior to others and cannot express them. He pities himself and wants to be pitied; you want to help him as much as you want to admonish him for needing help. He is both endearing and infuriating. He performs acts of kindness for others just so they'll be forced to thank him for it. All he wants is to cross someone's mind, if even for a second. The structure feels redundant, yet it's more intentional than it seems. As each character comes and goes from Baton's life, something is revealed about the jagged edge of reliability upon which he sits. It's hard to say if Baton truly wants a friend or if he merely wants to live in a society that would allow him to live his days in solitude. He probably can't fathom that the latter is an option—at the time Bove wrote this, it wasn't. It still isn't, maybe? Something extremely relatable there. You feel bad for Baton and you don't—I wouldn't want to be friends with him, either...