Only One Novel Is A Novel: That

The Novel Is Very Much Alive, Indeed. In Toronto At The Sixth Annual International Festival Of Authors (october 1985) I Listened To Novelists By The Dozen.

They Accepted The Pleasures Of Morning, The Bright Sun, The Whelming Sea And Sweet Air, As A Time When Play Was Good And Life So Full That Hope Was Not Necessary And Therefore Forgotten.

The Mask Was A Thing On It's Own, Behind Which Jack Hid, Liberated From Shame And Self-conciousness.

I Think There Might Even Come A Time When I Would Read Virgil Again. Ovid's Metamorphoses, Perhaps, Not Because The Music Goes Round And Round And Never Comes Out, But Because It's An Extraordinary Picture Of Ceaseless Change That Never Comes To An End.

Towards Midnight The Rain Ceased And The Clouds Drifted Away, So That The Sky Was Scattered Once More With The Incredible Lamps Of Stars.