Breath

The “enigma of respiration” is the novel’s central preoccupation, connecting the danger of drowning to the perils of the bedroom, and shaping the representation of life and death (44). “It’s funny,” Pikelet reflects, “but you never really think much about breathing. Until it’s all you ever think about” (43). He passes his acute awareness of the respiratory process on to the reader, persistently making the notion of breathing seem surreal instead of “normalized, automatic” (44).

Pikelet and Loonie practice suspending their breathing, not because they take it for granted but precisely because they are so conscious of it. They consider life as something to be mastered, rather than simply survived: their “life-threatening jinks” are “a rebellion against the monotony of drawing breath” (45). “It’s easy for an old man to look back and see the obvious, how wasted youth and health and safety are on the...