Give me your thoughts on this passage

The acrid and thick air weaved with the night's fireworks displays continues to waft through the windows of my Spring Street flat, as I sit anchored to my desk facing the contents concealing it. Below, a crowd of rowdy revelers stagger onto the street, their laughter and cheers mingling with the persistent hum emanating from the Pride of Paddington public house, cast doubt on any rest.

The last fortnight has been a desolate stretch. My mind ensnared with the same motionless haze enveloping the streets below. I've not had an ounce to return sociably-speaking, and, regrettably, I've accepted this solitude as my inevitable companion in the days to come. My only semblance of company, the seldom-seen comings and goings of my fellow lodgers - their feeble attempts of conversation, in my belief, would only amplify my already profound irritability.

Reluctant though I am to concede, it appears I have embraced the role of a recluse. Whether this isolation is of my own making or the result of some enigmatic force entwining its shadowy tendrils around me remains unclear.

This is a translated passage from a french crime novel.

Reply 1

Picnicl

If they wanted 'rest' why did they leave their window open when there's a fireworks display?

I like the term 'motionless haze'. They've already told us that there is motion going on. But, to them, it's motionless. This must be because it doesn't involve them. It's also implicit of depression. He's not interested in it ('rowdy' is derogatory) and the crowd presumably can't see him much, if at all. He doesn't meaningfully value the lodgers any higher than the random crowd outside.

He knows it's not an ideal situation for him and yet it's proven to be the situation that most stays with him. The question is was that due to choice or circumstance? The last line has a Lovecraftian feel to it. The sense that something supernatural has invaded the natural order (to create a kind of madness, as is the case in Lovecraft). The use of the word 'enigmatic' suggests that the shadowiness of it might be a necessary evil. The earlier 'sociably-speaking' suggests that he's historically been gregarious himself (perhaps he once could have been categorised, by someone who didn't know him, as a 'rowdy reveller'). There's a semi-Dickensian feel and a sense that this physical motionlessness cannot and will not last. There are real 'forces' seemingly at odds with him - the crowd, the pub, the lodgers, and the 'enigmatic force'. No forces to speak of that are on his current wavelength therefore something's got to give, even if it's his sanity.