Harry wanders through college without much ambition and, upon graduating, decides his best chance for happiness lies with a former girlfriend, Kate. He follows her to Taiwan, where she has a job teaching English, and lands a job tutoring an ominous government official, Mr. Chen. Kate and Harry fall into a period of domestic pleasantry, along with their roommate, a German sword dancer named Frederick, until Harry notices that one of Kate's pupils, Wu P'ei-Fu, has developed a crush on her. Harry falls progressively deeper to obsessive tendencies and the book climaxes with an uproarious chase across the Himalayas.

I appreciated Coale's style and humor and would love to try more of his work (I believe, however, that this is his only published novel). The title comes from an ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail and forming a circle. This image (along with snakes in general) appears as a symbol and theme throughout the novel.

I felt Harry made a wonderful, albeit unreliable narrator/protagonist. At times likable, at others a whiny mooch, at others seemingly deranged . Kate, likewise, is perfect as the object of Harry's fanatic affection. She is actually not that remarkable of a character and is written in a vague, non-specific fashion. It is clear right away that Harry is more fascinated with the ideas that surround love, passion and fulfillment than he is with Kate as an actual person.

This was a surprisingly fun read. ( )