Every Age Has A Keyhole To Which

Sex Annihilates Identity, And The Space Given To Sex In Contemporary Novels Is An Avowal Of The Absence Of Character.

The Return To A Favorite Novel Is Generally Tied Up With Changes In Oneself That Must Be Counted As Improvements, But Have The Feel Of Losses. It Is Like Going Back To A Favorite House, Country, Person; Nothing Is Where It Belongs, Including One's Heart.

The Happy Ending Is Our National Belief.

The Things Of This World Reveal Their Essential Absurdity When They Are Put In The Venetian Context. In The Unreal Realm Of The Canals, As In A Swiftian Lilliput, The Real World, With Its Contrivances, Appears As A Vast Folly.

Others Are To Us Like The Characters In Fiction, Eternal And Incorrigible; The Surprises They Give Us Turn Out In The End To Have Been Predictable And Unexpected Variations On The Theme Of Being Themselves.