“Spent the fortnight gone in the music room reworking my
year's fragments into a 'sextet for overlapping soloists': piano,
clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language
of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted
by its successor; in the second, each interruption is
recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't
know until it's finished, and by then it'll be too late.” (445)

This was a clever and enjoyable meditation on the nature of identity and subjecthood (cultural, economic, physical, emotional, political). One could even get really "meta" and discuss narrative's role in formulating subjects across the page for the reader. The characters in this novel are all rooted, not in reality, but on the foundations of past narrative. One of the opinions the novel has (working against Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence") is that we might retell our own stories, and thus, reappropriate power over our very own subjecthood:

"If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass." (508)

Were moments a little schmaltzy? A few, but overall the novel pulls off it's uniqueness and surpasses mere gimmick. I recommend the book. I imagine a lot of the philosophical themes and emotional effects will not translate well to the film version, though I'm hopeful.