Every Homeless Person has a Story
The most persistent and insistent theme the story pursues is that people living on the street are not Homeless with a capital “H.” These are individuals, not some collective like the Borg all interacting together independent of everybody with a home to go to. Form equals content with the author’s decision to structure the book as a series of narratives from the perspective of each of his main characters. How every person who is homeless reaches that point is different, but society has chosen to situate them as simply variations on a theme of character flaw or moral failing.
Fiction isn’t Real Life
Even among hardiness of the book’s fans, the biggest flaw found in its story seems to be the plot itself. Both positive and negative reviews and analysis often take exception—to various degrees, of course—to the plot mechanics of finding a lottery ticket changing the fortunes of such distinct figures of economic inequality. Depending on how one feels about the novel as a whole, this can be described as everything from an unlikely fantasy to unbelievable hokum. Whenever fans and critics alike agree on something, the first thing that should always be considered is irony. Did the author intend for his story to be interpreted sincerely or ironically?
Considering how often the films which captivate the attention of the protagonists are feel-good fantasies with fairy tale happy endings that almost in all cases dependent upon the most unlikely or coincidental of events, the most likely explanation is that the author engineered his plot precisely to produce the same effect. The unlikely—and therefore unfair—machinations of the plot therefore act as thematic commentary upon the link between the real lives of his characters and the characters in the plots of the movies they watch. Pretty much every reader seem to be in agreement that the book isn’t realistic, but that is the very point.
