A Zen-like joke about time. The protagonist searches for the dindlo, the miraculous particle that determines the perfect moment for someone to do what they truly want. And when he finally finds it, he realizes that he never really knew what he wanted after all.
Although time is hardly something one should joke about — more often, it is time that plays jokes on us, and the realization is always bitter, like something out of a film noir. So is The Road of Lightning a Zen noir novel about time? Perhaps it is more accurate to say that it is about timing.
The protagonist searches for the dindlo, the miraculous particle that determines the perfect moment for someone to do what they truly want. And when he finally finds it, he realizes that he never really knew what he wanted after all. In any case, the relationship between what a person wants and when they want it will always be complicated — and literature itself was born, in part, to bring some order to such things. With only relative success…
And so The Road of Lightning came into being as well. Somewhere far down that road, sparks flare up, wild surges of electricity erupting from the rupture of the current — and every now and then, they may strike us too.
