Absolutely depressing but what a book to end the year with. Everyone knows that between Christmas and New Year, time doesn't really exist, and you regret everything from the past, and you're scared of everything in the future, it's a limbo period, and the only reason you're holding on is because surely something, one good thing, must be waiting for you at the end of the excruciating wait.

Buzzati's temporal pace is masterful. Days, months, years blend into this surreal blur around Drogo, stuck in his endless wait. It reminds me a lot about Beckett's temporal limbo. The guy's waiting for glory, for action, but as Godot, catharsis never comes. All we get is this poetic monotony. The novel is slow, so slow, and then it's over. Just like life, sorry to be cliche.

I'm glad I read this at 25 with hopefully half of my life I've still yet to live. I have long ago renounced the capitalist scam of Having A Career, and I greatly recommend it! I do think I've got most of the essentials down correctly, too. Greatness is overrated; the mundane isn't just mundane, it's life happening when you're not busy chasing some elusive grandeur; etc etc...

This book is a reminder of what exactly I'm trying to avoid happening in my personal life, but way more than that, it is also a reflection of the existential feelings hovering about in the 1940s, just before WW2 broke loose in Europe. It's like a mirror to the political landscape of the time – everyone's on edge, waiting for the next big global blunder, but what of life? What of dancing and singing, of falling in love, of making merry? How is life affected by an impending doom?

Our modern world is slowly starting to feel like something great and terrible is about to go down soon, too, and many times this year, we've witnessed a lot of tragedies, and we've all had to think about that question, too. How are we supposed to live our lives now, in the midst of all of it?

Those are the questions I'm asking myself as the year comes to a close, and a new one begins. I will try not to die defeated and rejected by everyone around me during this time. Happy New Year!