Shall There Be Womanly Times? Or Shall

How Can A Novelist Achieve Atonement When, With Her Absolute Power Of Deciding Outcomes, She Is Also God? There Is No One, No Entity Or Higher Form That She Can Appeal To, Or Be Reconciled With, Or That Can Forgive Her. There Is Nothing Outside Her. In Her Imagination She Has Set The Limits And The Terms. No Atonement For God, Or Novelists, Even If They Are Atheists. It Was Always An Impossible Task, And That Was Precisely The Point. The Attempt Was All.

In Leon's Account Of His Life, No-one Was Mean-spirited, No-one Schemed Or Lied Or Betrayed; Everyone Was Celebrated At Least In Some Degree... Leon Turned Out To Be A Spineless, Grinning Idiot.

Novelists Have To Be Adept At Controlling The Flow Of Information, And, Most Crucially, They Have To Be In Charge Of The Narrative.

What Idiocy, To Racing Into This Story And Its Labyrinths, Sprinting Away From Our Happiness Among The Fresh Spring Grasses By The Oak.

A Person Is, Among All Else, A Material Thing, Easily Torn And Not Easily Mended.