You'll remember this. You may not live there anymore, and it might be years since you've been there, but you'll recognise it instantly. Nothing has changed. Not a thing out of place, and not a detail altered: same views, same problems, same people, same faces, same old same old. 'I feel violent with "hate" against this bloody town.' 'It is the unsociability, the not-knowing-anyone, the having-no-colour, that kills. No interesting people to talk to, no sincere people, no unusual things to do.' 'Then there is "niceness" as a standard of judgment - God, how I hate that word, too! - "a nice girl", "a nice road". Nice = colourless, efficient, with nose glued to the middle path, with middle interests, dizzy with ordinariness. Ugh!' 'Going through a long period of self-discontent.' 'Sense of waste.' 'Need to find a striking individuality.' 'People bore me profoundly and desperately.' 'The complete pointlessness of overdrinking.'

LRB 6 May 2004 | PDF Download