****: on the narrator/ main character

On Matthew Selwyn's ****, or, The Anatomy of Melancholy. 


Swearwords, swearwords, swearwords. Rants. Ravings. Violence, tits, cocks, violence, tits, drugs, fucking, cocks, tits, power, freedom, dicks… A seemingly endless monologue made up of profanities, boasting about size and performance, and cynical, misanthropic comments on everything.
Isn’t it tiresome? 
Then I noticed something interesting in ****. 
There’s a discrepancy between what the narrator says he’s like and what he’s really like. In his own words, he’s confident, free, powerful, independent and marvellous—alienated from others but indifferent because he’s nonconformist and superior. The illusion is unbroken for pages, until we see him with Chloe when she’s late, and before the man at Job Centre Plus. Does he put on an act before the people around him, or does he lie to us? All of his boasting, with all the bombastic rhetoric about life and love and sex and power and everything, is but a mask, a disguise, a cover, a shelter for a lonely, broken young man—underneath all that confidence, arrogance and disdain is deep insecurity. 
I shall not just call him an unreliable narrator. I’m afraid he doesn’t lie to the readers as much as he lies to himself. 




______________________________________

Going around, I came across this review: 
http://www.thecosydragon.com/2015/07/review-matthew-selwyn-or-the-anatomy-of-melancholy.html
“The protagonist came through as a man stroking his own ego and penis and that was certainly some solid characterisation – but in the wrong way. Bombarded by constant reminders of his penis’ superiority, it was difficult to get beyond those thoughts.” 
Disagree. As I wrote above, there’s something more to it.