Certain recurrent Coe themes emerge in these 25 pages. The unreliable male narrator / lead character / hero. It's a type that pops up again and again in his fiction. A slightly troubled, creative, emotional dilettante sort. In this case William. Also another archetype, the slightly unobtainable, and in this case rather drippy female love object Madeleine who he projects most of his pent up desires and frustrations upon. It doesn't bode well.
Like many of Coe's heroes William reminds me a bit of myself when I was younger in terms at least of my emotional immaturity and vulnerability. Not completely. Coe's heroes are often an exagerration of a type, but the type that they are are actually quite unusual in fiction in my experience and a major factor in why so many people make such an effort to read his fiction every time Coe puts out something new. A new Coe is an event for many.
The ability to create relatable and immediately empathetic characters who you believe in is a particular gift of Coe's. In this respect he's like no other author I can think of apart from Salinger who seems the obvious precedent for him in this respect though I've never seen the two compared. Anyhow Morrissey and The Smiths supply the natural soundtrack for the awkward and slightly clumsy progress of a type such as William.
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