Not long ago I sat next to a young Portuguese novelist at dinner and told him I intended to read his first novel. He grabbed my wrist, genuinely distressed, and said: 'Oh, please don't! Back then, all I read was Faulkner. I had no sense of humor. My God, I was a different person!' That's how it goes. Other people's words are so important. And then without warning they stop being important, along with all those words of yours that their words prompted you to write. Much of the excitement of a new novel lies in the repudiation of the one written before.