A Novel Is A Mirror Walking Down

As Someone Who Writes Novels That Are Often Set In Other Periods Of Time Or Other Ages Or Other Landscapes, There's A Certain Element Of Research I Have To Do, And Often, The More Laconic People Are, The More Interesting They Become.

Her Father Had Taught Her About Hands. About A Dog's Paws. Whenever Her Father Was Alone With A Dog In A House He Would Lean Over And Smell The Skin At The Base Of Its Paw. This, He Would Say, As If Coming Away From A Brandy Snifter, Is The Greatest Smell In The World! A Bouquet! Great Rumours Of Travel! She Would Pretend Disgust, But The Dog's Paw Was A Wonder: The Smell Of It Never Suggested Dirt. It's A Cathedral! Her Father Had Said, So-and-so's Garden, That Field Of Grasses, A Walk Through Cyclamen--a Concentration Of Hints Of All The Paths The Animal Had Taken During The Day.

Nicholas Temelcoff Is Famous On The Bridge, A Daredevil. He Is Given All The Difficult Jobs And He Takes Them. He Descends Into The Air With No Fear. He Is A Solitary. He Assembles Ropes, Brushes The Tackle And Pulley At His Waist, And Falls Off The Bridge Like A Diver Over The Edge Of A Boat.

It's Why You Create Characters: So You Can Argue With Yourself.

I Believe In Such Cartography – To Be Marked By Nature, Not Just Label Ourselves On A Map Like The Names Of Rich Men And Women On Buildings. We Are Communal Histories, Communal Books. ... All I Desired Was To Walk Upon Such An Earth That Had No Maps.