Status Updates From Pogovor

Nighttime: trading of secrets, imperfections, “without recrimination” (self-perceived?)
Relations with those in vulnerable states (grieving for past-passed partners) driving them to (literal or implied) suicide…
Transferred metaphor of imagery associated with food and eating into context of intimacy and relationships

Dissociative episode in Irena’s relationship with Paulo?? (p. 115)
Waiter as intentional interjection/interruption within narrative?
Only positive ‘incidents’ seem to be those preserved in singularity? ‘Dream-like’ quality?
Letters (epistolarity) as enabling freedom of interpretation (and misinterpretation??)

Trip to Greece (exotic setting): catalyst for an ‘awakening’ of sorts
Present time interspersed with narrative flashback; often, the former philosophical and the latter anecdotal — contrast a thematic idea?
Jarring episode in relationship between Stephen and Carol

Common themes:
Food as central plot device
Night/darkness as time-space detached from reality
Conversation with a stranger: sense of impunity
Self-constructed interpretations/projections onto reality