Good evening, gentlefolk.

After last week's awful long rant about the sins of Lady Gaga, I have decided to put some holes in my own boat and talk about criticism. G. K. Chesterton said (somewhere - never ask me for sources!) that "A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author." You should all know by now how I feel about Chesterton, but I don't feel this pithy little quote is quite accurate. My feelings on the subject would be better expressed thus: a good novel tells us the truth about its critics. I have realised the reason for my overpowering preference for autobiography over biography - biography invariably reveals more to the reader about its author than it does about its subject. I know it's a bit of a sketchy theory to chuck on out there, but I think that if you can find homosexual undertones in Winnie the Pooh or a great hulking darkness in Pride and Prejudice then you really need to spend some serious time examining whatever bizarre problems you've got lurking in your own little psyche, instead of trying to prove that the author had daddy issues (the same goes for people who have ever personally identified with any character from Wuthering Heights. Gee wilikins). I particularly hate it when people decide that a book's significance derives from whatever overthought, overserious, overwrought interpretation it inspires in them. No. Books are not made important by your analysis. Books are made important by the joy they inspire in you. And the joy they inspire in people who are not you. Chiefly the latter.