Insignificant Others

After much distraction, I've finally finished reading the new book by Stephen McCauley. I have a feeling that this book may have been difficult to write for him, as it is more difficult to get into for me. The characters seem somewhat removed from the author's own experience and sympathies, thus making it difficult for me to sympathize with the characters either.

Yet in the end the book still came out fairly satisfying and, might I say, helpful. All of his novels are on some level about the same thing: to make a change in one's life for the better, to take a step toward a new direction that is more honest with oneself, or, like the line in Company, "to want something, to want something."

Richard is a 50-ish psychologist-turned-human resource manager in the corporate world. He is lethargic about his job and love life. Rather than getting to the heart of the problems, it is less painful and overwhelming to relegate his attention toward insignificant distractions: an extracurricular affair with a married man, office politics, obsessive exercise ...

Unlike his previous novels, the flaws in these characters are more hardened and less vulnerable (ie, lovable and sympathetic). Again I am reminded of how earnestly people set traps for themselves in life. Yet there is no right answer. It is quite silly but I am continually shocked by how my instinct has still not fully accepted the lack of a right answer for anyone in life. I accept it intellectually, but my emotional brain is still not used to the universal truth. Somewhere in all this there is a story waiting to be told.