Reality versus Fantasy

This entire novel is based on one question: What would happen if man could have all he desires? The war the narrator describes in the opening pages of the novel is a war between reality and fantasy. Dr. Hoffman has built a machine that allows the line between reality and fantasy to blur. Suddenly time no longer exists. One day Desiderio walks to work and the streets look normal, but the next the streets are cobblestone, suddenly becoming the streets that existed over a hundred years before. Dead people begin to walk and talk again, coming back to their loved ones. Lovers begin to find it difficult to tell the difference between consent and refusal. Murders begin to take place on a regular basis when people find it difficult to tell the difference between real affronts, real people, and fantasy.

Desiderio finds it easy to ignore...