Eben’s vision is of the world’s fundamental anarchy. The “madness,” as Burlingame whispers, of living unsheltered from the “infinite winds of space” is what impels us to accept the impossible terms of the narrativized life: to be both author and protagonist of experience, deity of fate and heroic beneficiary. It’s a losing battle, but the delusion that sustains personal narrative is remarkably adaptable; capable not only of tolerating contradiction but absorbing it into its dramatic structure. Delays become tests of our patience and resolve. Failures indicate our correctable inadequacies. Denials charge up our imminent vindication. The countless other lives we see ruined by circumstance, rotten luck or self-sabotage become cautionary prologue to our legend. Their stories are tragedies. Praise the heavens, we live in a prophecy.

I wrote about the nihilism and mid-career evolution of novelist John Barth for The Point (2024.)