I am a novelist. I traffic in subtleties, and my goal in writing a novel is to leave the reader not knowing what to think. A good novel shouldn't have a point.

I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.

I am not a good cue card reader.

I am baffled by good writing.

In 'Open City,' there is a passage that any reader of Joyce will immediately recognise as a very close, formal analogue of one the stories in 'Dubliners.' That is because a novel is also a literary conversation.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.