Someone who goes on at some length about how he is too serious for dramatics is engaging in them. This should be the reader's tipoff. It's sort of a Holden Caulfield thing.

I agree with that. The problem is, I don't think he ever goes on at length about it. Drat him.

I may have to reconsider a lot about how I deal with POV. It's too limiting, currently. My issue was that I wanted to thoroughly avoid that thing Stephen King does, where it seems like he's writing very limited, very personal POV and then gives me a great big headache by saying, "But what he didn't know was that DEATH lurked around the corner... and something even worse than DEATH!!!" It's just so silly, and knocks me right out of his book.

Aw, I kinda like that technique, at least in certain types of stories. :)