A Single Man

by Christopher Isherwood

These books have not made George nobler or better or more truly wise. It is just that he likes listening to their voices, the one or the other, according to his mood. He misuses them quite ruthlessly—despite the respectful way he has to talk about them in public—to put him to sleep, to take his mind off the hands of the clock, to relax the nagging of his pyloric spasm, to gossip him out of his melancholy, to trigger the conditioned reflexes of his colon.

Most of the students enter from the back because, with an infuriating sheep-obstinacy, they love to huddle together, confronting their teachers from behind a barricade of empty seats. But this semester the class is only a trifle smaller than the capacity of the room. Late-comers are forced to sit farther and farther forward, to George’s sly satisfaction;

I’m like a book you have to read. A book can’t read itself to you. It doesn’t even know what it’s about. I don’t know what I’m about. “You could know what I’m about. You could. But you can’t be bothered to.