In middle-age
I decided
to get myself
a narrator
and take up
the life
of a protagonist.

Critics found
themselves having
a few problems
with this approach:

a) In the book, the narrator early describes the protagonist, Mr. X, as “…the only man in his class in school who is unlikely to wield a pitchfork.” But then, later on in the story, Mr. X is described as “…the only man in the county who could run the family dairy, manage the town’s small hotel, maintain several properties, is the seventh son of a seventh son, and spends his time on learning books as a hobby.”

In other words,
they found
the narrator
unreliable.

They went on
at some length
with their critique:

b) In the book, the protagonist, Mr. X, describes himself as “…the most intelligent man in the world, with three degrees in mathematics from a four-year university.” But the narrator, who is Mr. X’s roommate, reports, “There are two things I can’t write about in this story…my name and the names of the people I worked with and their jobs.”

Mr. X (punctuation marks removed, emphasis on “him”) says one of his supervisors writes in an annual review:

“This guy is a fucking genius! He’s got two degrees, he’s got a doctorate, and you’ll never see him in a story book. Give him all the raises!”

c) In the book, Mr. X, says “I’ll work for anybody you want”. The narrator describes Mr. X as someone:

“…who loves work. He’d rather sit in his office, alone, and wait for the sun to come up and his job to end than spend time for any reason with any woman or child he co-created.”

The critics
seemed unsatisfied
with my fictions
and the fictions
of those
around me:

d) In the book, the protagonist, Mr. X, talks to Ms. M, his co-worker. “I’m always a good liar, especially when I tell the truth, and no matter what happens, I always get away with whatever needs gotten.” The narrator describes Ms. M. as “…a woman who is constantly telling lies, and never even tries to avoid them.”

e) In the book, Mr. X, says “I never get tired of lying about anything. I can just sit down and lie about anything. It’s something I’m born for. It’s my work.” Later, in the book, even the narrator says “I can’t talk without lying, because everyone knows I lie. It’s my work.”

f) In the book, toward the end, we are led to believe that the narrator is Mr. X, the protagonist. This is perhaps the most distasteful sequence of the entire story.