"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again."

A beautiful and sometimes perturbing collection of short stories, full of surreal truths.

"Providence appears to protect such women, maybe out of astonishment. Or else, sooner or later, it doesn't."

Won't be able to look at those new high rise buildings in east London without concern, now

".... his white hands delicate with blood."

What a decadent writer! I know too much about the extravagances of European history now but I think it's a fair price to pay for the memory of Dorian Gray.

"Some Malays were crouching by a little charcoal stove playing with nine counters, and showing their white teeth as they chattered." - ah yes us Malays and our white teeth

"All art is quite useless."

Dense writing style but lush imagery and conceptually fascinating. A Triassic future.

Takes about three hundred pages before it really gets going - was well worth it.