There were other galleries, entire floors, no point lingering in a secluded room in which whatever was happening took forever to happen.”
-- Jim (Prologue)

Importance: This quotation, which appears during the opening pages of the prologue, foreshadows the rest of the novel, which moves at a glacial pace, even though the ideas and emotions being explored are apocalyptic in nature. There are indeed other “galleries, entire floors” that Jim and Elster and Jessie could explore; however, they are determined to stay in their ruts, on an endless track heading nowhere meaningful. They are each “lingering in a secluded room” (the room of their minds, their habits, their narrow desires) while they should be exploring life in all its variety and depth. They are obsessives, neurotics, people trapped by their own psyches, and what is destined to happen to them over the course of the novel will indeed take forever to happen—until it...