The Author Himself

The work authored by Sir Wilford Stanley Gilmore was truly substantial, running to more than two thousand pages, and the publisher in the brief foreword, rather unconventionally, did not concede to mandatory expressions of politeness praising those persons whose support had made the present volume possible; nor did he adhere to the custom of wishing to recommend, to a general audience, this lesser-known scholar to his readers’ distinguished attention, no, not at all; instead, employing a fairly harsh tone, the writer of the introduction objected to his readers’ potential accusations, according to which the whole thing would have been more comfortable, more easily navigable, as well as daintier, if it had been published in two volumes, and with this invective, thoroughly unjustified, presented with no explanation—not to mention the startling openness of its formulation or rather its unconstrained tone (almost continually employing such expressions as “go fuck yourselves,” “shit,” and “your mother’s cunt”)—the impression was created that the writer of this introduction was not any kind of separate personage but none other than the author himself…

A MOUNTAIN TO THE NORTH,… Laszlo Krasznahorkai