I do understand and am impressed if you managed to read the whole thing as I said though one ofmy very avourotes it's one i recommend to very few people and of the very few I have I would have been pretty surprised had they finished it- and by that i do not mean in anyway that I am so clever that I am able to but rather, as I just wrote- You have to be the kind of person who understands and identifies with the weird impulse of finding meaning, beauty & joy by noticing, examining & discussing the absurdity, filthy & horror that can run riot in the world and humanity...and perhaps had i not read the right translation and at the right age of 18/19 & ging through a rather dark period even for someone of that age I am not sure I would...plus it took me about a quarter of it or so to actually get the tone of humour - this is why I found it odd you finished it I guess it is maybe a pointof principle you always will do? As if it is an issue that it was too angry or depressing for your taste was it not a miscalculation to read a book written and narrated by a non ranking soldier in the french army during ww1? A story opening on exactly those terms 'here's how IT started- I had never said a word not one, it was...' was unlikely to be full of life-affirmination, forgiveness & praise for human kind?