Well written, but ultimately unsatisfying. I'm certain that I would have a stronger feeling about this book if I lived during a time when homosexuals were made to repress their true selves, imperialism was the word of the day, monotony was taking over the workforce, Arabs were looked down upon by much of western culture, tourists paid meager rates to third-world children for labor services and sexual favors, a huge percentage of visual artists and intellectuals were snobby and pretentious, too many innocent people died in pools of blood in foreign countries, and all of this was immensely frustrating to me. Oh, wait...