A Very Beautiful Young Woman Once Asked

As For Critical Writing About Modernism, Its Moments Of Lucidity Are But Fulgurations Illuminating The Dark And Incomprehensible Landscape Of Its Subject's Unabashed Difficulty.

You May Have Gathered That I Am Not The Most Cheerful Of Revellers - Some Characterise Me As The Death And Soullessness Of Any Party But It Wasn't Always So, Believe Me.

I Can't Remember Who It Was Who Advocated That You Should March With The Left And Dine With The Right But I've Often Concurred, Taking The View That I Personify The Great Tolerance Of Britain By Consenting To Being Regally Entertained. Besides, There Is A Degree Of Truth In The View That While The Left Are Worthier, The Right Are Wittier.

If We Bought Everything On The Internet, Our Eyes And Mouths And Nostrils Would Probably Begin To Film Over With A Tegument - One Initially Tissue-thin And Capable Of Being Removed Each Morning, But Which Gradually Thickened And Hardened Until We Were Imprisoned In Our Own Tiny Minds.

My Novels Tend To Come About From A Fusion Of Two Big Ideas, Creating A Critical Mass That Then Fissions, Throwing Off Hundreds Of Other Particles, Riffs, Tropes And Characters.