"The future of our society gets gloomier and gloomier," he reflects in this novel, which was originally published in 1992 in Sweden, "a country that was changing rapidly, becoming unfamiliar and uncertain".
He is the model of the wise counselor who doesn't himself seek power, and he gets gloomier as the novel goes on, shifting from a sense that he will always know the political score (or several different political scores) to a belief that the world has gone beyond even his agile understanding.
So, instead of getting gloomy and resigning yourself to 2012's habits, get realistic.
David Berson, the chief economist at Fannie Mae, isn't getting gloomy about the housing market.
In a box in the first chapter of the WEO the IMF acknowledges that even though its forecasts have gotten ever gloomier since 2010 they have not gotten gloomy enough, fast enough.
In fact, whenever I feel myself getting gloomy, I pull out "Persuasion" and just let myself get nice and choked up.
The opening of the film made the defining statement of Curtisland philosophy, his considered response to 9/11: "Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport," Grant's character says.
Before we get gloomy, let's look at the bright side: in the short time the apps have been available there have been some smart uses of both, including product demos, launches, interviews and, interestingly, some citizen journalism of Sunday's collapse of three buildings and blaze in New York.
