I love and I write to obtain an ephemeral victory over the immense and infinitely powerful mystery of what is there but does not show itself … I know the triumph is fleeting. On the other hand, it makes invincible my own secret power, which is to do something – this very moment – unlike anything in the rest of our lives. Imagination and language show me that, for imagination to speak and for language to imagine, the novel must not be read as it was written. This condition becomes extremely dangerous in an autobiographical text. The writer must be lavish in presenting variations on his chosen theme, multiply the reader’s options, and fool style with style through constant alterations in genre and distance.

Currently reading Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone by Carlos Fuentes. A strange book but perhaps a writer to read more widely; Bloom lists A Change of Skin and Terra Nostra in the Western Canon.