Romance as adventure together
Some people view romance as the center of the human life, but this book puts something else at the center of human life—the quest for meaning. So what is romance? Romance is what Jacques and Pitsemine accidentally discover while they partner together in that quest for meaning. As co-adventurers, they are helpful and challenging to one another, and as they compare points of view, a relationship develops. Romance is the shared experience of two people trying to find "Theo," each from their own perspective.
Love is the meaning of life
Ultimately, what does Jacques even accomplish in this book? Why does he suddenly feel at the end that he knows with confidence what his next project should be? Because he saw a glimpse of death, and the horror and tragedy of his brother's suffering and incapacitation drove Jacques to mourn, because he loved his brother, and he regrets not having done more for him. If the quest of the novel is to find meaning, than he found it in that one emotion, because afterward, he will know what to prioritize—his relationships with other people.
Art as the exchange of experience cycles
The structure of the novel is symbolic, because the plot of the novel is that an author is using the experience gained from his adventure to write a new book with. That means that the book is meta-narrative, because it is a story about how humans use narrative to shape the meaning of their life. This novel also uses Jacques a picture for "The Artist," who uses the emotions and experience of the various cycles of their life to craft books in Jacques's case, or any kind of art.
