| Fun moments for me: - The thematic element of wishing that the reader not follow the "references" in the work--the iPhone smackdown, and later more clearly with the SACRED CLOWNS--leading later namedrops to pass without question. (In a strange way, it almost feels like the urge to look them up was similar to an urge to vomit: it has passed, and now I feel better.) - Slipping into Inform 7 to actually tell a story. I almost wanted to paste it into an interpreter--it's valid Inform code--but it's more powerful as narrative, and more powerful in the narrative because of its structure. In the moment where he lost momentum and looked around for a next step, the world "branched out" into a space composed of choices. This is the one more little attempt to show people what "code as art" can mean. - The realization that (possible spoilers) the last third of the book is the story of how he found himself working at a start-up. His reactions in-narrative mirror his comment earlier in the work that he's "learning to get over his hatred of entrepreneurs." --- On the whole, a very coherent story. If you're having trouble making sense of it, make sure to interpret all the "deaths" in the story as death of identity, rather than physical death. Losing a job is death; breaking the social contract of a character is death; etc. And now, the site is down, and the _why identity is dead once more. (And on a melancholic, perhaps overly-personal note: I do so wish that I could be friends with that man. Not the identity, just the man. Talking about The Happening would be fine.) |