Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf starts with a man who sees himself in black and white. Two personalities living in one body, rubbing against each other, rotting each other. That friction is the whole turmoil of the book. The wolf is just the name he gives it.

Slowly the story moves away from those two separate halves, toward the idea that we are all of those things, and at the same time none of them.

A man who looked down on dancing, on jazz, on anything light, lets himself be taught to dance. Stiff at first, embarrassed, thinking too much. Then comes the masked ball, and somewhere in that loud, crowded night he stops watching himself. For the first time in his life he dissolves into a room full of strangers, and he's simply happy, without having to justify it to anyone.

The book ends in the Magic Theatre. He gets it wrong again, is sentenced to be laughed at, and walks out knowing he will have to play the game once more, and one day play it better.

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.