There’s, to my mind, three ways in which the angriest of us can make an argument, and they’re usually limited to personality type. The first, and most admirable, is violence, which has three subcategories: 1) the promise of threats; 2) a swift uppercut to the opponent’s jaw or unmentionables; and 3) a swift uppercut to the opponent’s mother’s jaw or unmentionables.
The second is the ad hominem, or a frank and honest attack on the opponent’s personal failings, e.g. “Well, I may not be able to take the square root of a negative, but you have the face of an elephant”; and the third, and most reviled, is the obfuscation of language.
Cosmopolis is firmly planted in the third type, so firmly that I’m not even sure if it’s making an argument at all. The characters all have endless monologues laced with ballooned phrases and delivered with no sense of meaning or conviction. For example, early on the protagonist meets up with his wife, who informs him that, “You reek of sexual discharge.”
