Ok, I must admit that the book has gotten a great deal better. Alobar’s encounter with Pan was a weak bit, but things have improved markedly from there and we have an odd passage that is in dialogue with my Buddhist musings, which were mused before Buddhism appeared in the text – but the theme of desire and the relationship of desire to individuality was there from the outset. Alobar’s lover Kundra responds to his rather harsh critique of Buddhism as a half-life in search of no-life with the following, “The word desire suggests that there is something that we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary… To eliminate the agitation and disappointment of desire, we need but awaken to the fact that we have everything we want and need right now” (pg.115). What I really need is a job I can accomplish in a single hour everyday that pays all my bills, so I can spend the rest of the time reading and writing. Can I be Borges when I grow up? Karl, please awaken to the fact that you have everything you need and want right now.