Thomas Lipscomb 2008

Extracted from Mr Hoban’s fifth novel and dropped on 4 February 2008:

We are, for example, clever enough to know that a year is a measure of passage, not permanence; we call the seasons spring, summer, autumn, and winter, knowing that they are continuingly passing into one another. We are not surprised at this but when we give to seasons of another sort the names Rome, Byzantium, Islam, or Mongol Empire we are astonished to see that each one refuses to remain what it is.

‘Why are you weeping?’ said Bembel Rudzuk.

‘I am suffering from an attack of history,’ I said.

‘It will pass,’ said Bembel Rudzuk.

from Pilgermann

Jonathan Cape 1983, pages 116-117