Exits

I went into town again to buy pumps and to meet Mum to get my suitcase. As I sprinted home from the bus stop I got absolutely drenched in a cloudburst.

I'm enjoying The Harp of the Sky. It's got an atmosphere about it I like. I identify with it, more so because I know the flavour of the country in which it’s set. But how much this enjoyment comes from the story itself or is just my love of Vaughan’s situations and moods I don't know. Would I find it as good if it was written by someone else?

The way critics constantly dismiss Vaughan is annoying; they casually characterise her as a “wastrel,” a “reprobate” and even “a degenerate.” Questions of talent aside, this is unfair. Her famous abandoned second novel seems to sum up her life and fate perfectly; there she is, a shadowy figure rashly cut from the story in a fit of self-doubt and derision, doomed instead to remain a perpetual ghostly presence in the background.

I just want to be gone and sorted out now. Tonight I feel restless and excited but I can’t think of anything to satisfy me.