I should make a brief digression here – within the long digression, you might say, of this handwritten exercise I’ve so cautiously embarked upon – to say that I became a writer not because it was my calling, but for complicated socio-politico-econo-psychological reasons. At this moment, for example, rather than writing, I’d like to be devising a computer game, making a film, playing some Bach on an organ in a historic (European) cathedral, or simply depositing my seed in a series of women’s wombs, lined up one after the other as far as the eye can see. My relationship with literature is all I can allow myself; or, indeed, all I’ve been allowed – up to a point – by other people. To put it more plainly and more accurately, writing is cheaper and less dangerous, or more comfortable, for me. I’m lazy and cowardly, and poor to boot; I should therefore resign myself to writing, and even be thankful for it. End of brief digression.