"INTERVIEWERIn Number9Dream, you have a description of a gangster who has a voice “as thirsty as..."

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INTERVIEWER

In Number9Dream, you have a description of a gangster who has a voice “as thirsty as sandpaper.” He has “cavernous eye sockets, plump lips, mottled and flaky skin—the sort used on young actors playing old roles—and a wart on the corner of his eye bigger than an amorous nipple.”

MITCHELL

Good God!

INTERVIEWER

You don’t like it?

MITCHELL

I’m not sure. Am I guilty of Orwell’s criticism of Dickens’s fabulous gargoyles, that they make for rotten architecture? “His voice is as thirsty as s...