A very good but quite depressing read. For me it spoke of lonliness as the most terrible aspects of being human, as a price of being any kind of individual. Of how despite the unique aspects of our characters that enable us to be someone no one else can be: and so do and see things in a way no one else can our own problems and difficulties stifle our potential. That ironically lonliness despite being a personal interior emotion of isolation depends so much on the actions of the people around us. Modern lonliness is made worse by the constant contact with so many people who do not understand us or even care too. This is a book about a man with a fantastic gift, who wastes so much of his life a slave to the weaknesses so many of us share with him. To the affections, and good opinion of others, to an inability to love others as they are, or accept the love of others as they are able to give it. To a fatalistic view of our lives and our relationships with those around us. A cautionary tale then, worth reading.