Will Self

She'd come here in 1958, died in 1988, left me in vacant possession of England.

You are fond of him.

I was never not fond of him.

My problem was transgenerationally, in an unhappy marriage, you inherit the agon of one of the partners.

And you can't get over it till you deal with your stuff with the parent who finds the other parent the agon.

The agon?

Well, the thing that most upsets them, the antagonist.

As in agony?

The cause of their agony.

The cause of their agony.

So until I dealt with mum, I couldn't deal with dad.

I didn't even have a relationship with him on my own terms.

I couldn't.

She was constantly in the way.

And since he absented himself, it was very difficult.

I can.

I can remember I was passionate.

I was a passionate soul.

And I fell in love with boys, of course, because they're adorable.

who wouldn't uh and i fell in love with boys and i would always have crushes and i wanted to be the most popular boy and i couldn't be the most popular boy because i was a weirdo so even though i tried i looked good on paper my failing was i wasn't a good enough sportsman and i knew it by the time i was 10.