Like the character Anthill, many years ago I also worked as a medical orderly, in the spinal rehab unit of a large Melbourne hospital; though I think I wondered less then about "the optimal conditions for thought" than the various demands that personal tragedy places on the nervous system, I do remember being rousted often from my natural reveries. But "The profession’s dilemma: How to be analytical and fully empathic at the same time" -- I think might echo back to your earlier discussion of the "worker's novel" -- and this is of course essential for the full interpretative (and compassionate) hard-press. And while it's true enough that airy types -- toiling philosophers and toiling psychiatrists -- usually get short shrift for some of their unbalanced affinities, it reminds me that many of them (and some of us, I daresay) still work toward creating something that will be remembered. The by-products of an age of love, I suppose. After reading your review, I will put Mr Bail's novel on my wish-list.