The twenty five year old protagonist loses interest in life. He sells his books and TV; he moves out of his bedsit into his brother's flat whilst he is away on business. He quits college in search of a raison d'etre. The unnamed protagonist begins to write lists of the things he used to like, become friends with a 5 year old boy, dates with purity a girl, throws a ball against a wall for hours. He finally decides to visit his brother in New York. This deceptively simple, highly enigmatic novel answer to the question: “Can youngsters (worldwide) count on mentors, masters?”. No!“What I really need is an older man. A Mentor. One who could tell me what is the meaning of things. One asking me to perform tasks that I consider meaningless. I would become impatient and complain, but I’ll do them anyway. And finally, after many months of hard work, I would understand that there was a deeper meaning behind it all, and that the teacher had a circumspect plan from the beginning. Suddenly I would be able to see large correlations. To penetrate beyond the appearances. To draw conclusions about the world and humans. I would also be able to control myself and bring out the best in others, and so on. That’s the way it should go. Damn! It is obvious, isn’t it? It should never have gone otherwise. But teachers like these do not grow on trees. I've never met a single one. Everything makes me think that I'll get away alone” (Erlend Loe, Naïve.Sup, 1996/2002, 43-44).
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