The product of an unfortunate habit

Nicola Vulpe considers poetry and fiction unfortunate habits ...

says the blurb on the back of his book

... which he has supported by working as a computer programmer, technical writer, senior manager in high-tech and university professor.

Chris now works on the same premises of this man in his guise as technical writer and he bought his novella out of curiosity. When I it arrived at our house I read it in one go, enthralled by it. The novella is called The Extraordinary Event of Pia H., the narrative having the logic and repetitive quality of dream sequences that progress from one event to another, from one place to another (actually several places: parts of Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Canada and 200 fathoms deep in the Pacific Ocean) without actually getting anywhere much. At the end of the book the narrator, or perhaps one of the narrators (you can't be sure) is still moving forward (or is it backward?) searching for the wife who vanished into thin air on page 1 after turning to admire a chicken in the Plaza Mayor of León. Great fun to read, with an underlying atmosphere of sadness.

It reminded me of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman.