Charlie Barnes is a stereotypical Boomer: Narcisisstic, incapable of self-reflection, steadfast in his belief that the world owes him unearned greatness. Yet he turns out to be a reminder that, unlike characters in a book, none of us are stereotypes — we are all complex humans who contain multitudes, and getting to the “truth” of who someone is isn’t as easy as it seems. I found the first 3/4 of this novel a bit tedious, but the payoff of the last 1/4 redeemed it. As the narrator, Jake Barnes, notes:"Real life makes for good novels because it's lived as a bunch of lies, and because fictions of one kind or another are the only things worth living for."