“To have a name imprinted along the bottom of a Styrofoam container: this was immortality.”

The protagonist associates his sense of self-worth with his job as a nomenclature consultant. Seeing the product names he developed on containers and wrappers after the product has been consumed gives him a feeling of immortality because the name remains.

“If he’d planned it correctly, he would have been in a hermit cave in the mountains, two days’ trek from civilization, or in a cabin on the shore of a polluted lake when Roger phoned.”

Whitehead establishes the protagonist as a recluse who shies away from contact with his former colleagues and acquaintances. Words like “hermit cave” and “trek” characterize the protagonist as someone with grandiose, romantic ideas and a sardonic sense of humor—qualities are a source of inner conflict for the protagonist as he struggles to reconnect with the world.

“It was a good place to make a bad decision, and in particular, a bad decision that would affect a great many people.”

The protagonist views his hotel room as a setting for contemplation. His rueful prediction that he will inevitably make a “bad decision” about the town name foreshadows the novel’s conclusion, which will leave readers wondering what the best solution to the problem would have been.