There is a pretty satisfying, deeper explanation for how and why the thoughts are arranged and continually looped around to in this one, which makes it the most compelling of the three. The pontification on art and peripheral critiques of it were interesting as well, even if the plot goes in a direction I didn’t expect and, even more than the last, is a book where not much happens. Probably, you’re down with that if you’ve made it to the third book, unless you’re reading the bind-up, which I am doing for the last two books, having started the first a while back.

There’s a case for reading them with time apart and a case for reading them at once. The reiteration of events do feel stilted because they feel like a recap that stands out, rather than the influx of memories that are relived, probably as a trauma response. They feel apart from it for the only reason of signalling to the reader that they should remember them, because it’s about to be expounded on.

It also, I think, mostly denies a lot of catharsis, despite learning quite a bit. Some things are never explained, though they’re dwelled on constantly. And I suppose just with the writing style there’s a heavy bit of solipsism that begs a few questions. Mostly, the strength is in the unique style of delivery and the melding of conveying philosophical underpinnings and characterization. There’s a lot of form meeting function that telegraph so much about the character. The reader knows so much more about them than they do themselves, which rings very true, to me. How well can you know yourself without input from other people? How much can you make out and what do you construe in your own little locked room? What are your own paths trampled down in the wilderness of your mind, unconsciously taking you through the same way, time after time again?