As Diz said of Pops

Joel Vessels once said that without a Kipling, there would be no Orwell. I heave a sigh and ponder The Light That Failed, the fourth book I completed this now waning week of holiday. Kipling plunks the strings of myopia which reverberate throughout Literature, not only the legacy of Homer and Borges, the fates of Joyce and Huxley, but the fear of darkness which haunts novelists in certain manifestations like Saramago's celebrated novel of an epidemic and Nabokov's often overlooked (no pun intended) Laughter In The Dark. The fate of Kipling's protagonist may appear contrived, especially given how the novel is largely a survey of light and color. The alchemy of Art, writ proper, is the axis and alas all ambitions can be wiped away with turpentine. I have since occupied myself with Jacques Roubaud's grand project. I will likely finish The Great Fire of London this weekend but may steer away from Oulipo for the time being.