Now, the person he's talking to. You quickly realize that it doesn't really matter who they are. This person barely speaks over the course of the entire book. They could be anyone. They could even be you. And that's kind of the effect Camus going for here. 99% of the book is just Clements, more or less talking at this person about himself. Anecdotes from his life, his thoughts about other people, his thoughts about his thoughts. Like, if you've ever known anyone in your personal life that's prone to going on long, narcissistic, dramatic monologues about themselves, they'd probably be a big fan of Jean Baptiste Clements and his work. I mean, it truly is a glorious display of narcissism. And without question, some of the first shots fired by Camus at a type of person that is rampant within modern society. Now, what becomes obvious as Clement starts talking about himself? Is that he's not a very happy person. I mean, not only is he sitting in the middle of a bar in Amsterdam, not only is he drinking. But then you find out that he's drinking gin. I mean, that's just nasty. This man clearly doesn't love himself anymore. And as a reader, you can't help but start to wonder what happened to this man that got him down to such a lowly lowly place. And as he goes on what you discover is that what happened to him is that he had a bit of what you could call a fall in his life. That he used to be one version of himself, some events played out in his life that led to his fall, and now he finds himself in a bar in Amsterdam talking to strangers. He starts out the book telling the person next to him about the man that he used to be. He tells this person that before the fall, not too long ago.