Read The Answer is No and found it as perfectly enjoyable as a light weekend brunch. I could not help feeling the translation turned the writing a bit sophomoric but no way to know as English is the only language I have reading fluency in. I had to force myself to focus on how the story was written but enjoy the elements of satire. Organizations run by bloated middle management and committee was a prime target. Having worked at (and consulted for) pretty large organizations, some of the decision-making leading to the formation of the Pile Committee in the book and the designation of its remit definitely struck a chord.
When you are young, naive and somewhat socially awkward (I speak from experience as I have been all of that), you like to believe that people are intent on solving the problem specially when the solution is plainly obvious. It does not occur to you that the problem does not exist to be solved. It may have been manufactured to create consensus on insolvability. Those who agree with this premise are "in". Those who unwisely and to their own detriment (as the protagonist in this story) want to fix it and destroy the tool of social cohesion, are in the "out" group.
As someone who greatly values their solitude, I can appreciate a person's need to be left alone. To outside observers who are not the kind that want alone time as a priority, this may not be comprehensible. They may not even recognize it as a thing that they should be aware of - there are sounds in nature that are inaudible to the human ear and we are not expected to be aware of such sounds. So this person's burning desire to be left alone can be trampled upon with no malice intended - as we see happening here with Lucas.
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