[Kevin J MacLellan]

Gail,
Conrad, unreadable!?!
Shall it be pistols or blades? (And, mind you, I'm a bleeder.)

I fondly remember a summer in grad school when I read everything he wrote and found him one of the greatest story-tellers and an unsurpassed master of a language not his own. (He was a Polish lad who put to sea on English merchantmen very young in his life.) So, you see, I have no choice but to throw down the gauntlet. (Not what I wanted to do on such a cold night here in the Northeast.)

I can forgive your not having read Ulysses, no doubt due to its scandalous 'Anna Livia Plurabel' scene; oh, and also because - now that I think of it - I have yet to get through Finnegan's Wake. (As a devout Joycean enthusiast, I am duly ashamed.)

Still and all, I must insist you take back your derogation of Conrad, -- Have you tried Lord Jim? -- or, . . . we'll be back to pistols or blades. En guarde!

P.S. Conrad wrote a fine short work called "The Duel"! (That must have been in the back of my mind all along. Ha!)