A difficult book to judge, a fragmentary journal of a disaffected existence. While there is no plot, and nearly no characters besides the fictionalized author, there is story, of a philosophically-minded dreamer nihilist bookkeeper, working his boring job, visiting the countryside, walking the anonymous streets of Lisbon at night and at lunch, and musing on art, literature, and the mind. There are gems of insight here, though they largely would have appealed more to me when i was 24 and single and just discovering the soulless-ness of modern life.