This little book came as a bit of a nice surprise to me. It was stated as one of the 1000 books I had to read before I die, and I was slightly dubious, but ended up enjoying it. The stream of consciousness writing of our main character Gustl is very humorous (in a black sort of way as he talks about killing himself!). He is saddened by being called a "fathead" one evening at the opera and feels there is no way out apart from shooting himself. I also appreciated the ending where everything is nicely rounded off!