The ironic product
The holographic telecommunications device is futurism at its most ironic. First of all, the device serves an ironic function. The device makes people feel they are together when they are not, which Alan says is a good thing, but he doesn't sell it. The king doesn't have need for virtual reality, it seems. When the irony is viewed through that symbolic lens, the reader sees a commentary about technology. Is it helping or hurting?
The ironic failure
The novel is about a salesman, so one might suspect the novel will feature one big sale, but actually, he fails the sale. Instead he finds a job where doesn't have to sell something he doesn't care about. He sells homes, which is he wants most, and by selling other people homes, he attains a home for himself in a new place with a new wife. The irony of his failure is that it opens up opportunities for him that success could not have brought.
Zahra's emotional journey
Zahra is an interesting character. Her journey toward understanding Alan and loving him involves saving his life. She is involved in the removal of his tumor, but in a much more serious way, he sees her as a savior because his eager emotions for her allow him to feel a deep connection to life. She makes him feel alive, and then she saves his life and marries him—but not before she utterly rejects and humiliates him.
The irony of cancer
Alan's life as a salesman changes when he realizes one day that it isn't something attainable that he wants. Rather, he is working from a position of survival, assuming that life is what he wants. Cancer is a tool by which he becomes aware of this irony within himself, making cancer an ironically positive experience (although not a pleasant one). He is improved by his journey into the grips of death, and then back out again. The other irony about cancer is that a lot of people will get cancer, but it never feels like it will happen until it does. He faces that irony squarely in the novel.
The expatriation
Perhaps the best way to encapsulate the story would be to say this story is about a salesman who expatriates from his country to live with a new wife abroad in Saudi Arabia. The irony of that plot is that until the end of the book, that isn't known to the reader (or to Alan). Expatriation is shown to the reader only after a novel's worth of dramatic irony, as if to say, "America really has nothing to do with this story." The journey of expatriation is a complicated one, and the reader already knows that he is met with mixed feelings from the community that Zahra belongs to.
