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author reporting on the public’s failure of taste, but with the air of one who knows from the beginning that he is writing for forty-five people. And surely it is better that forty-five should buy the book and actually read it, than should many thousands, indeed millions, buy it and put it on their shelves, like George VI (or V, or Edward VII, or possibly somebody else altogether). That, she remembered, had been the fate of Professor Hawking’s Brief History of Time. That was a book that had been bought by many millions, but had been demonstrated to have been read by only a minute proportion of those who had acquired it. For do we not all have a copy of that on our shelves, and who amongst us can claim to have read beyond the first page, in spite of the pellucid prose of its author and his evident desire to share with us his knowledge of . . . of whatever it is that the book is about?

And then, she thought, there were those novels that went on forever. Readers in a more leisurely age may have stayed the course, but not now. Domenica herself had tried to read Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy four times, but on each occasion had got only as far as page eighty. This was not because of any lack of merit in the novel – it was very fine – but because of its sheer scale. Such a fat book, she thought, in her defence; so many pages, and marriages, and family relationships. Almost like Proust, whom she had never finished, and whom she accepted she now never would. À la Recherche du Temps Perdu was on her shelves – and in a prominent position – and every so often she would dip into it and wander away into a world of dreamy reminiscence, but she would never finish it; she knew that. The sentences were too long. Modern sentences are short. In Proust, we encounter sentences which appear interminable, meandering on and on in a way which suggests that the author had no desire to bring a satisfying or intriguing line of thought to any form of conclusion, wishing rather to prolong the pleasure, as one might wish if one were an author like Proust, who spent most of his time languishing in bed – he was a chronic hypochondriac – rather than experiencing life – an approach which encouraged him to produce sentences of remarkable length, the longest one being that sentence which, if printed out in standard-size type, would wind round a wine bottle seventeen and a half times, or so we are told by Alain de Botton in his How Proust Can Change Your Life, a book which has surely been read by most of those who have bought it, so light and amusing it is.

Domenica stopped. She had been gazing out of the window, allowing her thoughts to wander. But there were things to be done that day, and Proustian reverie would not help. One of these things was to remind Antonia that it would be her turn to sweep the common stair next week; not an onerous duty perhaps, but one of those small things upon which the larger civilisation in which we lived was undoubtedly based.

52. The Anthropology of Neighbours

When Domenica went out of her flat onto the landing, she noticed immediately that the pot plant which grew beside the banister had been damaged. It was a large split-leaf philodendron, which she had bought some years before and which she had nurtured to its current considerable size. In this task she had received, she observed, very little support. When Bruce had occupied the other flat on the landing, he had professed an interest in the plant’s welfare, but had rarely, if ever, raised a finger in support. Such a narcissistic young man, Domenica thought; had the leaves developed reflective surfaces, of course, it might have been different. Pat, who had at that point shared the flat with Bruce, had been more conscientious, and helpfully had washed the leaves from time to time, something which the plant appeared to appreciate and which it rewarded with fresh sprouts of growth. But Antonia, in spite of having been very specifically asked to ensure that the plant was well watered while Domenica was in the Far East, had proved to be an indifferent guardian at best,