Childhood Is A Disease - A Sickness

Roger Stooped, Picked Up A Stone, Aimed And Threw It At Henry-threw It To Miss. The Stone, That Token Of Preposterous Time, Bounced Five Yards To Henry's Right And Fell In The Water. Roger Gathered A Handful Of Stones And Began To Throw Them. Yet There Was A Space Round Henry, Perhaps Six Yards In Diameter, Into Which He Dare Not Throw. Here, Invisible Yet Strong, Was The Taboo Of The Old Life. Round The Squatting Child Was The Protection Of Parents And School And Policemen And The Law. Roger Was Conditioned By A Civilization That Knew Nothing Of Him And Was In Ruins.

When You Take A Child Who's Hollering Like Hell, Sit Him On Your Knee, And Say "once Upon A Time", You Stop Him Hollering. As Long As You Go On Telling Him A Story, He Will Listen. Novelists Who Neglect This Fundamental Effect Do So At Their Peril. They Become What Is Known As The Experimental Novelist, And An Experimental Novel Is Not Really A Novel At All.

One's Intelligence May March About And About A Problem, But The Solution Does Not Come Gradually Into View. One Moment It Is Not. The Next It Is There.

Then You Have People Coming Up Like Malcolm Bradbury, A Relatively Young Writer Who Deals With The Academic Scene And Deals With It, I Think, Brilliantly.

I Hope My Books Make Statements About Our General Condition.