“Fiction is an illusion wrought with many small, conventionally symbolic marks, triggering visions in the minds of others”

“Extremely self-conscious in its craft, in many ways The Hand of Ethelberta is an exploration of fiction as illusion, which involves parody of the conventions it employs; romance, melodrama and farce, and a rejection of realism for absurdist and surrealistic effects. The ‘hand’ of Ethelberta is an obvious, ironic allusion to courtship, and the sub-title, ‘A Comedy in Chapters’, suggests the novel’s affinity with the conventions of Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy of manners.”

“There were many markings in pencil, and those strange symbols again, dashed off, it seemed, revealing their opacity what a complex and abstract thing written language is.”

“That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.”

“Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing seems really great and important but themselves.”

“I knowit’s stupid to not own a gun yet haveso many triggers, but in some other worldgigantic seashells hold humansto their ears and listen to the echoof machines.”