The Nature of Things

If you remember The Matrix , you may remember that the blue pill would give you a happy, if illusory, life, whereas the red pill would allow you to see the world as it really is. Reality versus happy fantasy: That was the choice. The title of this book is Red Pill and yet throughout much of the book, it seems as though our unhappy and unnamed narrator may have ingested the blue pill, although it certainly hasn't made him happy. But he definitely seems to be living in a fantasy world.  Our narrator is an essayist and teacher, a husband and father, living in comfort in Brooklyn. At least it should be comfortable, but he is suffering from an unspecified dread that has rendered him unable to write. His writer's block is complete and it begins to extend to other parts of his life. He imagines that he would be unable to protect his family should calamity arise. And calamity seems always just over the horizon. When he receives an invitation to a fellowship at a Berlin think tank, it ...