TEXT:

Reference HH/nc
Andrew Malcolm Esq., 7 Southover Street, Brighton BN2 2UA

Dear Mr Malcolm,

In brief, we think that this isn't by any means impossible, but that it won't do as it stands. Does this horrify you?

We don't mind about the dialogue, though it does clank occasionally. Indeed, we agree with you that dialogue can be a useful device, and we think that you do make good use of it. What you have to say seems to us philosophically interesting too; the reader says "It makes one of the shrewdest cases for a sort of Collingwoodian Idealism that that I've read - not that it reads like Collingwood or cites him as an authority, but that its emphasis on the way we constrain the world by deciding what sort of general laws it's to follow, and what sort of explanations it's got to conform to is rather Collingwoodian'.

If we have anxieties, they are about the longish slabs of straight science, e.g. at the end of Chapter 1, and about the interpolation of the play about Electra in the last Act; they serve a purpose all right, but I think that some readers may feel they go on too long before you reveal their purpose. This connects with what is in some ways the most important worry of all - that the book is far, far too long for us to be able to give it a sporting chance at the price we'd need to charge for it to make it appeal to the kind of reader who would profit from it.

How adamant do you feel that the book can't be made substantially shorter? That's the key question. I'm glad to hear that you are planning to put the book on to a word processor: that will certainly make polishing easier, and my experience of using such a machine is that it makes cutting easier too. I look forward to hearing your reaction.

With best wishes,

Yours,

Henry Hardy

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