[3] It is similar in many respects to James Joyce's Ulysses and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway in its use of stream-of-consciousness narration and the limiting of the action to just one day.
Dick is a manic narrator,[4] and reminiscent of Septimus Smith, the shell-shocked war veteran of Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway.
The narrative is fragmented, often making it difficult to tell who is talking or thinking, or whether events are occurring in the present or being recalled.
He returns to the crowd in the street and becomes nauseous as he is swept up by the mass of people.
They enter a tent with waxwork displays of body parts, and disfigured people with what appear to be war-wounds.
He flees and watches another mutoscope film of a head biting a neck.
In the club Dick specifically notes the jazz musicians, black waiters, dancers, and a singer.
Ezra Pound, writing for The Dial in November 1928, believed the novel to be one of only two "offspring from Ulysses...possessing any value.