Mostly Harmless

Well, I have to say that Harmless Banter gets slightly more comprehensible as you go. By chapter 3, some kind of actual narrative begins to show through. It was in this chapter when I realized that the main character, who is apparently a businessman, is the person always referred to as "he", whereas other characters are called "someone else" or "a third person", etc. I've also begun to realize that there might actually be a method to Ivan Large's madness. In a bizarre, absurdist sort of way, he seems to be putting forth some kind of theme about the uncertainty of knowledge. For some reason, however, he chooses to do this through writing that alternates between the extremely boring and the outright incomprehensible. For an example of the former, consider this inspired stretch of prose from page 22:

He opened the drawer. He looked for a pair of socks. He looked over many pairs of socks, how many he could not say since he wasn't keeping count. The objective of looking for a pair of socks that matched the rest of his clothes outweighed, for him at this moment, the objective of counting the number of pairs of socks that he surveyed. With each pair, his brain considered for a variable period of time--exactly how long in each case was impossible to say without scientific monitoring in strict laboratory conditions--the color, texture, and pattern of the socks, and matched this information with the criteria that he had chosen as to what would constitute an appropriate pair of socks. The whole process took about fifteen point three eight seconds. At the end of this time, he had selected a pair of gray socks, which he then proceeded to put on.

This is the kind of passage that makes me want to throw this book against a wall. I have just two words for Mr. Large at this point: Who... cares? I mean, what is the man thinking, writing a whole paragraph on someone looking for a pair of socks? More interesting, at least, are the incomprehensible passages. Just try to make sense out of this scene from page 29:

The speaker stood behind the podium and spoke in the most dignified tones. "In these latter days," quoth he, "whatever!"
A man in a gray suit, notepad and pencil in hand and serious expression on his face, said, "Is that a fact?"
A man who knew nothing spoke. "According to the Roberts-Green Hypothesis, the massive equivalent q of the ascending r tangential, relative to the p-sub-mu declination, would seem to indicate a recurring g-quality pseudo-Linian meta-ontology in the v quadrant." He made this up completely and it meant absolutely nothing.
"There are some things," said a fourth person, shaking his head. "There are some things."
A fifth person, swishing his cup of coffee around, said, "This is damn good coffee. Damn good!"
A sixth person, who happened to be wearing argyle socks, said with a twinkle in his eye and a cheery smile, "Our sales indicate that Progress is being made!" He did not attempt to define what he meant by "Progress".
"Hey man!" shouted a seventh person, who wore a green shirt, slamming his hand on the table. "What is your basic?" It was unclear who exactly he was addressing, or for that matter what exactly he was asking.
"Furthermore," said the man who knew nothing, again ad-libbing, "if my calculations are correct, the h-prime set of k-variable sub-elements in the Weismannian spectrum of entities should not... I repeat, not... affect our profit margins adversely, at least not in the short term." This statement, too, was absolutely meaningless.
The secretary entered the conference room. "More coffee, anyone?"
The fifth person, still swishing his cup of coffee around and around, said, "This is damn good coffee. Damn good!"

"Will you just?" shouted the person in the green shirt. Again, it was unclear who he was addressing or what he was asking.

"I've got to be sure to remember to pick up my wife's dresses from the dry cleaners after work," said the man in the argyle socks, addressing primarily himself.

"Your theory has been entirely discredited," said the man who knew nothing smugly, "whereas mine is backed up by the facts!"
The man in the gray suit said earnestly, "Is that a fact?"

Ivan Large is obviously not going for any kind of realism here, but is evidently making the literary equivalent of a Warner Brothers cartoon, except that Looney Tunes makes a lot more sense.