Both cryptic and mundane: take a diary written by someone with the usual amount of self-obsession but no time to explain. Alec is pretentious - the character not the book, except that the author is the character. I find the 70s dreary for some reason, not just the visual style and relative poverty, but something deep about information poverty and conformist anti-conformity. Massive amount of time in pubs with no particular narrative goal. Or: the main narrative goal here is to laud aimless friendship and pubs. The other half is chasing women, ineptly. An epic in length only.