So, did anyone read Lanark then?

The Epilogue is shamefully indulgent, isn't it? I did enjoy the references to all the works the author has plagiarised, including the mentions of chapters not actually in the book - did chapters 45-50 ever exist? I sort of hope they did in some form, though obviously that stuff about "the android's seduction of God" and the cloth monkeys vs. the wire monkeys is presumably a joke...

I think this is the idea. I really liked the Epilogue section and I think even Gray himself knew that it was cheesy and that's why he self-deprecates by painting himself as a pompous sadist. I never found this book depressing but maybe that's because I'm a fan of Gray's oevre and I know all along that a lot of the bleak imagery is designed to be purposefully wry.

I loved Book 1 and it's steadily deteriorated since then (midway thru Book 4 at this point). I almost gave up at the Epilogue and then skipped that part.

Surprising to hear the church mural was a real work of his, I thought it was a metaphor for the entire book, equally sprawling. I do think his strongly visual style combined with the absurdist elements is one the things that I have a hard time relating to.

Does he have better books that are less self-indulgent/absurd? Should I read Of Human Bondage? I hated A Remembrance of Things Past, and the painfully awkward bildungsroman bits of Lanark started to grate on me after a while.