...or Like An Old Friend One Has

It's Amazing What You Find Out About Yourself When You Write In The First Person About Someone Very Different From You.

The Point Is, That The Function Of The Novel Seems To Be Changing; It Has Become An Outpost Of Journalism; We Read Novels For Information About Areas Of Life We Don't Know - Nigeria, South Africa, The American Army, A Coal-mining Village, Coteries In Chelsea, Etc. We Read To Find Out What Is Going On. One Novel In Five Hundred Or A Thousand Has The Quality A Novel Should Have To Make It A Novel - The Quality Of Philosophy.

It Is Our Stories That Will Recreate Us, When We Are Torn, Hurt, Even Destroyed. It Is The Storyteller, The Dream-maker, The Myth-maker, That Is Our Phoenix, That Represents Us At Our Best, And At Our Most Creative.

Perhaps It Is A Fault Of The Species Who Thrive In Peace, Mutual Help, Aspirations For More Of The Same -- To Forget That Outside These Borders Dwell Very Different Types Of Mind, Feeding On Different Fuel.

Pleasure Resorts Are Like Film Stars And Royalty... Embarrassed By The Figures They Cut In The Fantasies Of People Who Have Never Met Them.