Transparent Things

&quote;Transparent Things revolves around the four visits of the hero-sullen, gawky Hugh Person-to Switzerland . . .As a young publisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armande on the way, wrests her, aftermultiple humiliations, from a grinning Scandinavian and returns to NY with his bride. . . . Eight years later-following a murder, a period of madness and a brief imprisonment-Hugh makes a lone sentimental journey to wheedle out his past. . . . The several strands of dream, memory, and time [are] set off against the literary theorizing of R. and, more centrally, against the world of observable objects.&quote;-Martin Amis