But the book is tedious and has a whiff of the grave about it, a certain rigor mortis, which is a serious defect and yet a trifling one too, because the main problem with this book is you, the reader. You’re in a hurry to get old, and the book progresses slowly; you love direct, sustained narrative, a regular, fluid style, whereas this book and my style are like a pair of drunkards: they stagger left and right, start and stop, mumble, yell, roar with laughter, shake their fists at the heavens, then stumble and fall . . . And fall! Miserable leaves of my graveyard cypress, you, too, will fall,
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