Headaches

I read another chapter of Banter on my lunch break today. I honestly don't know what this book is supposed to be. Two chapters in and there hasn't been one named person, just a bunch of meaningless "dialogue", if it can be called that, among nameless characters (described vaguely, if at all) in some unnamed setting (also described vaguely, if at all). I'm trying very hard to "get it" and am evidently failing miserably. On page 10 I came across this stirring passage:


He said something. No one else heard or at least did not understand, or at least did not pretend to understand, what he said.
No one else said anything for the next five minutes and thirty-six seconds. Then someone else said something. No one quite knew, or at any rate no one really cared, what this other person said.
"Did someone say something?" said someone.
"I don't know," said someone else.
After that, no one else said anything for a while, at least not within earshot of any of the aforementioned people.


Not exactly Shakespeare here. I can only shake my head in dumbstruck disbelief. How in the world did this guy get published? How does he get interviewed on talk shows and invited to speak at library conferences? Are people insane? Have any of these people actually read his books? I don't see how anyone in their right mind can admire, much less enjoy, passages such as the following (page 15):


An unidentified person ran. Another person, who looked vaguely familiar to one or more of the bystanders but whose identity could not be positively determined, ran after the first person. They ran in a big circle, round and round. Dogs barked, somewhere, near or far no one could say with any degree of scientifically verifiable certitude. At any rate one would have to first define what one meant by "near" and "far" before one could say to what degree some entity (such as the sound of the dogs barking) was near or to what degree it was far. It was because these simple yet crucial terms remained undefined that the truth value of the proposition "the dogs barked nearby" was undecidable, as was the truth value of the proposition "the dogs barked far away".
The two unidentified persons, both of unknown political persuasion, continued to run around in a big circle, for no reason that was apparent to the naked eye, nor, for that matter, for any reason that could be determined based merely on objective, unbiased observation and deductive logic.


Where's the Tylenol?