Solipsism as the explicit spine — "the only person in the world who feels like the only person in the world"

echoes

Early text: quote Burgess epigraph: "As we are all solipsists, and all die, the world dies with us. Only very minor literature aims at apocalypse," [westward-the-course-of-empire-takes-its-way:p2]; Mark's "central delusion": "Mark's is that he's the only person in the world who feels like the only person in the world. It's a solipsistic delusion." [westward-the-course-of-empire-takes-its-way:p426]; and J.D.'s adman's inversion: "Solipsism binds us together, J.D. knows... we are, always, faces in a crowd. It's Steelritter's meat." [westward-the-course-of-empire-takes-its-way:p472].
IJ echo: IJ's communication-and-solipsism spine — the impossibility of getting inside another person's head, and isolation experienced even within a crowd or a relationship. Nearest IJ register: the father/son failure-to-converse of the "professional conversationalist" scene (scene 005, pp. 27–31); the Marathe/Steeply debates on what, if anything, one can share or die for across the gap between selves (scene 035, pp. 105–109; scene 088, pp. 418–430).
Weight: shared-preoccupation