A straight, descriptive language that understands what he says. This is the style of "The Map and the Territory" by Michel Houellebecq . The humor is clearly highlighted in it, both intruded and entangled in the sentences, as if no added value, but part of "that's the way". This makes the reading of the book sophisticated intellectual pleasure. But that's not what I left of it. When it ended, I continued to carry the image of the protagonist, the artist, Jed Martin, as a failed marriage candidate and a lonely reflection of a dozen my lonely acquaintances. Why does not Jed make an effort to be with the blinding Russian Olga when her work forced her to leave outside France? Because that would be in contradiction with his personality. The personality of the modern self-sufficient man. Jed is a man who does not know why women like him. He does not have to conquer them. He is locked in painting and shooting, the result of which he can not judge by himself. A person who lives only among the things born of him and seems like everyone else is oddly not from his world - his father, his girlfriends, his home, his exhibits. He does not try to manage even his own fate - beyond the creation of his works - but she is gracious to him. This person must remain passive while being persistently offered love. He feels whole when he is alone with himself. I wonder if I'm from the last generation, which sounds strange to me. Many of my acquaintances, younger, do not have the need for a partner. The woman is getting later. They achieve other goals. They do not want to keep in touch with someone to hang around their lives. The book ends naturally, with a natural ending. Jed manufactures original visual works of decaying things that the plant absorbs and erases, in one with his grave. Everything to come to an end without transferring links to the future - naturally, that's the way things are. Hopeless. Children, heritage, charitable wills of riches - that would give a little hope. And perhaps the book was a bit untrue to the times it describes. And a little more suitable for romantic souls.