It's only after the change is fully formed that you can see what's happened.
That's what opium does to suffering: makes it of hypothetical interest only.
We're deaf men working as musicians; we play the music but we can't hear it.
. . . she read with undifferentiated glee . . .
I have written millions of words about contemporary England - in journalism. Why don't I take it as the background for a novel? I may do one day. But the simple answer is that it does not excite the novelistic part of my brain; it does not fire it up.
Oh, the sweetness of giving in, of full surrender.