A novel whose epigraph is Martin Heidegger's "We are suspended in dread" would seem to be giving itself a great deal to live up to. Lee Rourke's The Canal, an engaging and disturbing story of a man coming to terms with boredom and the people who seem to challenge his peaceful conception of it, literally sits the unnamed narrator down in the middle of a busy, oblivious, and constantly moving populace to establish its central premise: most people—office workers, dog walkers, gangs of youth, soccer fans—mindlessly fill their lives with pointless activity and entertainment, erroneously trying to snuff out their boredom, unaware of its ultimate and liberating power. Boredom compels us, says the narrator, to do things. Boredom, he insists, is good.
Ceci Cravens is my favorite critic!
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