i think i've made it over the hump with the strapping fiction, a phillip roth novel, incidentally. the contrast between that and concurrent reading (crevel novel, cixous essays, essays and poems from recent lit journals) has achieved something, something over the frustrating... the frustrating: traditional, well-mannered prose driven by a need to reveal and emote is like watching black and white tv. there's an unmet potential for color, but, once acclimated to it, it accomplishes its own insights/beauties by this omission. the trope of man-who-has-it-all-only-upon-closer-examination-is-his-life-in-shambles wasn't all that thrilling either, and still isn't, but it enables some interesting questions into how motivated people can be to dedicate themselves to certain endeavors, convince themselves they derive absolute personal fulfillment from even, when they are bound by a sense of obligation or duty... also, how experiences are appreciated in the present (as, say, pleasurable) but are able to be recast (as repressive) after unforeseen events of several years intervene. there is plenty to mine here with characters from the ww2 generation: sons who couldn't think to refuse the assumption that they would take over the family business so learned to love it, spouses that endure one another's burdens bordering on abuse, etc. but is there as much dramatic tension in this regard possible with subsequent generations? sure, people still make sacrifices, but less so as the values of self-determination and personal autonomy increase?