It seems to me that you would have to write a novel on a very small, intimate scale for it not to become political.

The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's.

I had no sense of any reputation that What a Carve Up! might acquire - at the time I didnt even have a publisher, so my main worry was whether it was even going to see the light of day or not.

As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic.

Well, I like the rain before it falls.

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

But you can try to read books at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons.