The immensity is the story; the rest is situation. That this son must come into his own by making war not on a parent who is willful and self-involved (which he is) but on one filled with the tender regard that alone gives a growing creature the ability to declare itself (which he also is). This is the thing the reader is meant to register; this is the narrator’s wisdom. It is the betrayal of love that is required in order that one become.

We all cling in one way or another, but as Hakuin reminds us, if we are searching for freedom, we must learn to lift up our hands. Early trauma like Jack’s cannot be healed by simply pointing out its origins. Understanding that he was not the cause of his parents’ anguish will not relieve him of the burden of it. But by working diligently to offset his mind’s tendency to repeat itself, Jack can become compassionate toward his childhood predicament rather than identifying exclusively with the pain of it. This was the deeper message I was trying to convey.

In our culture, we often have trouble distinguishing selflessness from submission, but they are very different things. Lukas was inclined to keep his feelings bottled up, but this scenario could not go on forever. His feelings were coming out in spite of himself, and his marriage needed more contribution from his side if it was to thrive. I think Lukas wanted his husband to understand what he needed without having to articulate it. There is a risk involved in speaking up, the age-old risk of loss of love. I didn’t think Lukas gave himself enough credit in his relationship; I didn’t think he valued himself enough. I meant it when I told him it was up to him to educate his partner. Sex was one important theater for this kind of exchange; I doubted that it was the only one.

I couldn’t latch on to a thought and then be carried by it as it moved into new territory. To do that, I think you need a narrative self inside you connecting you with experience, telling you how you fit into the subjective encounter with what you’re seeing and attaching whatever significance it might hold for you.

Unlike the woman in Zweig’s novella, Pancake did not let the melodrama in him transgress. He gave more than he had, more than he ought to, but he did not trap anyone. People who have not experienced a suicidal urge miss a crucial point. It is not that one wants to end one’s life, but that the only way to end the pain—that eternal fight against one’s melodrama so that it does not transgress—is to wipe out the body. I distrust judgments—Mann’s or anyone’s—on suicide. They are, in the end, judgments on feelings.