Aspects of Sexuality

Experiences of, and the effects of, sexual expression define the events, characters, and thematic considerations of the book from its earliest sentences to its last. Sometimes those considerations are direct and overt, as they are in the opening moments, with its intertwining portrayals of sex as a financial transaction and sex as a manifestation of longing. At other times, those considerations are more indirect and implied, as they are later in the narrative, with its portrayal of the narrator’s quest for a cure for the syphilis that sexual contact with Mitko has brought into his life.

Even the sections where sex and sexuality are barely glimpsed at all, such as the section in Part 3 describing the narrator’s train trip with his mother, there are echoes and resonances of, or with, this particular theme. In that specific case, those echoes sound throughout the...