A Single Man

‰ЫП‰ЫчBut, before we can go any further, you‰ЫЄve got to make up your minds what this novel actually is about.‰ЫЄ

‰ЫПThey spend the rest of the hour making up their minds.

‰ЫПAt first, as always, there is a blank silence. The class sits staring, as it were, at the semantically prodigious word. About. What is it about? Well, what does George want them to say it‰ЫЄs about? They‰ЫЄll say it‰ЫЄs about anything he likes, anything at all. For nearly all of them, despite their academic training, deep, deep down still regard this about business as a tiresomely sophisticated game. As for the minority who have cultivated the about approach until it has become second nature, who dream of writing an about book of their own one day, on Faulkner, James or Conrad, proving definitively that all previous about books on that subject are about nothing ‰ЫУ they aren‰ЫЄt going to say anything yet awhile. They are waiting for the moment when they can come forward like star detectives with the solution to Huxley‰ЫЄs crime. Meanwhile, let the little ones flounder. Let the mud be stirred up, first.‰Ыќ