For a short while I kept The Man Without Qualities in the low, blue-lacquered bookcase by my bed, four volumes I’d gotten after someone recommended the novel, but which I’d instantly come to realize I was nowhere near ready for. The first volume was dog-eared at page twenty and lay untouched where I’d put it, until one evening when one of Jonas’s work friends opened it. His name was Palle; he’d been traveling the world and was only briefly at home to make some money. He’d taken a welding class through the employment agency and got a job at the plant where Jonas worked, and here he was sitting
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