I don’t know if I should tell you this. This isn’t really a novel. Well, maybe it is. In some sense, at least. They could never really make a movie out of it, though. The story is abstract. The characters are vague. If this were a movie, there would be missing audio and dialog. Some of the scenes would just be snapshots or collages of photos, while others would be video snippets of various moments.

In a way it’s like a puzzle. Or maybe like a recipe. You need to assemble it, or cook it to understand what it means, assuming it means anything at all. Maybe it’s like a literary version of an impressionist painting... it’s just dots when you are up close. But stand back and take it all in to see what it really is a picture of.

And, like a painting, it might be subject to different interpretations. You might think it’s about some dystopian future? Or about the insanity of modern society? Perhaps it’s about subjective reality? Honestly, I don’t even know what it’s about yet. It’s just an idea, or maybe a set of ideas. They seem to go together in some strange way, woven with dreams, creativity, expression, transcendence, and love?

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I suspect most people won’t bother to read very far. The narrative is disjointed, where it even exists at all. The personal essays are mostly gibberish. The characters and situations are cliché and derivative. And the whole thing basically doesn’t make much sense if you read it like a novel.

And for the intellectuals amongst you, this isn’t intended as a challenge or some kind of separator. You aren’t smarter or better for finishing reading, or even for finding a message or your own interpretation. But if you do get so far, then I would like to at least thank you for putting in that much effort.

If I were vain, this might be where I include some poignant quote from some obscure thinker. Saying some profound set of words that are, somehow, related to the narrative in some abstruse manner. But what would that serve? Feed the cliché? Confuse the issue? I don’t think so.