" Yet the novel’s real action unfolds in M.’s head, as she struggles with the existential implications of her condition. She is alienated from her language, which bears the marks of its misuse, “bruises, notches, embedded jags of metal,” even as she protests language’s innocence and calls attention to the guilt of people. Perhaps she is one of the guilty ones? And is she entirely a person? She suspects there may be something of the beast about herself.
All of which makes getting lost a felicitous turn of events: a chance to lose oneself as well. Losing herself, in a symbolic death and rebirth, is precisely where the story winds up, although we are left to doubt whether such an escape is really possible."
