return-to-origin

The chapter 'Preamble' introduces the narrator's personal crisis at age thirty-five, marked by a lost year and a return to his college town, U., where he takes a visiting position at a cutting-edge scientific research center. The narrator reflects on his past, his failed plans, and his outsider status within the scientific community, while exploring the emerging global digital network—the world web—as a new form of existence and connection. The chapter sets up themes of identity, displacement, and the intersection of humanistic inquiry with advanced science and technology.