The Winner Stands Alone.
The title of the book has the ultimate irony. While it’s true that in a crowd of many average people, only the winner is able enough to compete to get ahead while others have to remain where they are, it’s also true that since only the winner gets ahead, he’ll have no companion, and so he’ll be alone.
“Forget about films. Cannes is just a fashion show.”
Igor is told by one of his colleagues that Cannes is just fashion show when he tries to learn more about the movies. It’s ironical that while Cannes is renowned worldwide for the movies that get through it, it’s more popular and more centralized around the people who attend it and what they wear. There is more talk of one’s clothes than of one's movies.
I’m not one of those traumatized war veterans who goes into a restaurant and machine-guns people.
Igor says this to Ewa on her concern that he might have some sort of underlying trauma and must see a psychiatrist. Igor replies that he won’t need one as he doesn’t have any war trauma and is not likely to kill people due to any homicidal urges. However, it is revealed quite early in the story that Igor was changed by his stint as a shoulder and that he has murdered quite a number of innocent people not because he it was his duty or to serve a purpose, but simple because he could.
The ‘Normal’ List
The ‘Normal’ List is a list maintained by Javits Wild, who carries it around in his pocket and makes frequent additions to it when he comes upon a new ‘normal’ thing. The list contains of anything that makes a forget what they are and what they actually want, so that they would do mundane things which they do not enjoy so as to earn more money. The list contains everything a person might do, which could be the opposite of what he wants to do, to achieve things he may not even want
His prayers might well be with the families of the dead, but his heart, after many years of inertia, is returning to the world of the living.
Inspector Savoy, on realizing that a serial killer might be on loose in Cannes, rejoices. Even though he is sorry for the families of the dead, but he is quite happy as this would mean that might get a chance to crack an interesting and popular case. He is sad yet happy that he’ll get the chance of being an inspector who gets to work in the field rather than filing paper work.
