Unnamed Protagonist

The novel is narrated by an unnamed protagonist. He is a spectacled young man, a writer who cannot find a job. He starts out the novel hungry, and he starves throughout it, kept alive by intermittent, transient bounty that he soon squanders. The narrator swings between highs and lows, alternating between euphoria and depression. Ylayali says that she thinks he is insane, and the modern reader may wonder if he suffers from manic depression and not merely the effects of hunger.

The narrator wants to achieve something great and profound in his writing. He seeks to escape from reality into fantasy by making up wild tales about princesses, castles, and even his own luck in finding a job and a woman. Still, he also wants a higher morality and sense of spirituality. He makes up a word in his delirium and thinks it must mean something highly...