In the self-published memoir-cum-novel poof: a curriculum vitae, James, the narrator, generalises on the background human condition assumed in the work. He says, for instance:  ‘Despair over our own existences certainly makes us bury obvious truths. Masochistic for meaning, we give ourselves over to existing powers so easily’.[1]  At one point, James says: ‘Now I … More In the self-published memoir-cum-novel ‘poof: a curriculum vitae’, James, the narrator, generalises on the background human condition assumed in the work. He says, for instance: ‘Despair over our own existences certainly makes us bury obvious truths. Masochistic for meaning, we give ourselves over to existing powers so easily’.  At another point, James says: ‘Now I have become a master of fieldwork psychology’. Yet we cannot know the full context in which  that naming of a role has meaning. This blog tries to read this analytic novel’s study of the lives of masters and slaves, and a world where power seems all there is in relationships, in a way that makes sense to me.