Living Large

Tonight after work I stopped by the public library and checked out a copy of Harmless Banter by Ivan Large. I read the first chapter. It's pretty weird stuff. The best way to explain it is just to give you a sample passage (page 3):

He screamed. Someone else screamed. A third person screamed. Within five seconds everybody started screaming.
They screamed. After they had screamed for a full minute and paused for breath, they screamed again. In each moment when they had been screaming for a period of time greater than zero and less than x, where x=the total duration of their collective scream, it was a true statement to say that they were, at that moment, screaming. However, in a strange twist of fate, the statement was no longer true once they had all stopped screaming.
"What," someone said.
"In," he said.
"The," he said.
"World," he said.
"Are," he said.
"We," he said.
"All," he said.
"Screaming," he said.
"About?" he said.
"I," someone else said.
"Don't," someone else said.
"Know!" someone else said.

If your head is spinning, so is mine. And take this gem from page 6:

"Are you kidding me?" said a man who was tan. "You have got to be kidding me!"
"If only," said someone who was paying no attention to the man who was tan. "We had something," the other person continued. "To look forward to!" He started bawling uncontrollably.
"You moron!" said a third individual, slamming his cup of coffee to the hard table. "Don't you know that you never, ever, under any circumstances, end a sentence with an infinitive!"
"Tell me you're kidding me," said the man who was tan, addressing neither of the above-mentioned individuals. In a low, menacing tone: "You better be kidding me..."
"What you should have said was: If only we had something... to which... to look... forward!"
"If you're kidding me I'll... well... you have got to be kidding me!"
"Whaa-aaa!" said a fourth person of unknown race, ethnicity, or creed, somewhere in the dark, sounding like what people once thought Dracula sounded like. "Whaa-aaa-aaa-aaa!"
"You better be careful out there," said a fifth personage of undeclared gender, sitting at the bar. "In the night... in the dark."
"Ahh, night," said a sixth character, of indeterminate socioeconomic background. "That is when all the unknown quantities come out."
"You have got to be kidding me! Tell me you're kidding!" The man who was tan's voice rose into a pitched scream: "You... have... got... to be... kidding... MEEEEEE!"

I don't know. All I can do is whistle under my breath and say, "Okay then."

What I want to know is, is this guy for real? Is he just pulling our leg? Why did the library conference invite him to speak? Do they really take this man seriously? I mean, is this what passes for high literature these days? I have to admit, though, whatever else you might say about it, I find it hard to stop reading it. It makes for a fascinating, if grotesque, experience. It's like a surreal dream where you never know what's going to happen next because it's absolutely, completely devoid of logic. I sure can't figure out what any of it means. I guess I just need to take Ivan Large's word for it and assume that meaning--at least in the novels of Ivan Large--doesn't really mean anything.