For the first hundred pages or so, the main character looks at a photograph while his infernal internal monolog blisters on. When movement happens in this story, you will miss it if you blink. When the character moves from location to location interacting with people, all described in a flat, paragraph-less, quotation-less, incessant vitriolic rant, the effect is strangely inauthentic, like a bad animation. The contrast between the cardboard events and the vivid, erudite, narcissistic characterization, is a new and infrequently heard interval. I was floored by this book, a not-story told by an absolutely hateful lover of art and Mediterranean life.