The pursuit of happiness

They are bombarded with key decisions that must be made: stay local or head into town; stick with the safe options, or seek out a “new wave” establishment; pre-book a table and run the risk of an empty restaurant or turn up and check out if it’s really the place to be seen on a Saturday night. The couple end up eventually glowering at each other in an Italian eaterie they both dislike, squeezed between two other tables of bickering couples. She’s furious because he’s ordered the same meal as her, he’s irate because the waiter has forgotten to light their candle.

It’s just one of many such passages in the wonderfully thought-provoking The Age of Absurdity and the key to its accessibility. Foley understands that when you’re going to populate your book with people such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre, and expose the unwitting reader to the result their ruminations on the meaning of existence you damn well better tell a few jokes to balance the experience.