A digression
From our UK edition
This post is not about one of the crucial issues of the day, so if you’re hungry for controversy, please move on. This is a trivial personal thing and I wondered if you might help. A couple of months ago I started to read a new novel by one of our esteemed highbrow-ish writers. I cannot remember the name of the writer or the novel, and I don’t wish to be reminded either. The story was written in the first person and the thing was I got half way down the first page and flung the book away from me in intense irritation, an irritation which stayed with me for the rest of the week. The cause of this distemper was the following sentence, somewhere on page one: “I breakfasted on coffee and apples.