THE LOOP
A while back, I read a book called ‘The Loop’ by Dan Sanders. It was quite an interesting book about this alcoholic man, Alan, trapped in a surreal cycle confined in a pine forest in which he has to follow a straight line and any attempt to deviate from it triggers a blackout and he has to begin again. As he goes through that, he relives certain moments in his life like his mother’s death, his father’s abuse and other experiences. Now when you read it the first time, it’s kind of eerie and confusing. Like why is he in a pine forest? Why does he have to stay in the straight path? Why does he keep on blacking out and reliving the traumatic experiences? I never really understood the theme of the book and why all that was going on until I realised I was stuck in a loop. The pine forest according to Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ represents fate. So it’s like whenever Alan deviated from the path, his blackouts would sort of reinforce the loop and so he was stuck in the cycle reliving all his...