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But the extravagance of Tudor self-aggrandizement is almost comical, and it wasn’t limited to the orotund Henry plastering his face onto biblical kings.

In the title story, for instance, the narrator combines the orotund diction of a robot with little comets of slang, “super nice,” “killing it,” in a way more manufactured than anything in “Tenth of December.”

The more strained our circumstances, the more manic the publicity machine, the more breathless and orotund the advance praise.

But now the speaker’s orotund oratory, his mannered put-downs, his pompous, practiced, often hilarious jawing will be no more.

By the end, he was rehearsing the same material, pressing “shuffle” on the same orotund playlists, and his work lost much of its consecrating power.