There is a transformation taking place in the course of the story, from a pragmatic and naturalistic world bound by necessity to a world of mythology and experience bound by human frailty and the possibility to connect. It is almost as if the illness, his gradual paralysis, enforces Ilias to allow other things to affect him, because he would never let himself. It is his body that makes him do it. He finds a way to relate to the image of the father, to the old world.
As the narration unfolds, Ilias, an opportunist, a semi-shadowy lone wolf who owns a small jewelery store in Athens, becomes a beacon of sorts, an evangelist of a society whose suffering manifests in mysterious accidents and disease outbreaks along with constant and ever-growing blackouts – an apocalyptic backdrop that echoes a universally shared feeling that our world/planet is close to an end.
It all feels very tragic but at the same time silly. Ugly and petty but also glorious and beautiful.