It’s been getting good reviews and I wanted to like it-right up my alley, a poet in Madrid-but I found the narrator to be insufferable, self-important in a passive-aggressive way and at the same time self-loathing, manipulative, self-centered, hand-to-the-forehead. Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Initially I was bothered by the monotone of the author's voice, the flattened affect, but getting further into the book this is the perfect voice for Adam. He's a painful character (in the sense of cringeworthy) but he's incredibly human & like cellophane - at times we see right through. His perspective is definitely warped though so we see some things he doesn't. A lot of this book is us spending time in Adam's head. He certainly puts too much meaning in to his interactions with others & overthinks things. He thinks he's a fraud as a person & as a poet & neither of these seem likely. He’s uncomfortable, we’re uncomfortable but the people around him in the book seem to be completely fine with it all, although he ascribes to them a higher wisdom than is likely. He’s terrified the people around him will see him as a fraud.
His lies are painful not least because he’s absolute rubbish at remembering that he lied at all. Adam has a serious case of imposter syndrome, and his way of dealing with this is sometimes to lie, try to look or sound mysterious (I'm not sure how well that actually works for him), or pop anxiety pills.
I think part of it is the language (the author is a poet), the other part is how believable the main character is as a human being.
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