Every Text Assumes A Reader.

I Remember, As A Child, The Confusion Of Not Knowing What This Place Was Where I Was Supposed To Spend The Night: It's A Disquieting Experience For A Child. And What I Would Do Was Quickly Unpack My Books And Go Back To A Book I Knew Well And Make Sure The Same Text And The Same Illustrations Were There.

Libraries, Whether My Own Or Shared With A Greater Reading Public, Have Always Seemed To Me Pleasantly Mad Places, And For As Long As I Can Remember I've Been Seduced By Their Labyrinthine Logic, Which Suggests That Reason (if Not Art) Rules Over A Cacophonous Arrangement Of Books.

Unicorns, Dragons, Witches May Be Creatures Conjured Up In Dreams, But On The Page Their Needs, Joys, Anguishes, And Redemptions Should Be Just As True As Those Of Madame Bovary Or Martin Chuzzlewit.

Something About The Possession Of A Book - An Object That Can Contain Infinite Fables, Words Of Wisdom, Chronicles Of Times Gone By, Humorous Anecdotes And Divine Revelation - Endows The Reader With The Power Of Creating A Story, And The Listener With A Sense Of Being Present At The Moment Of Creation.

We Seem To Live A Culture That Doesn't Want Blemishes. The Vision Of Most Beautiful Models... Airbrushed In Order To Be Seen As Perfect, Infects Our Notion Of How Literature Should Be Written.